Primary Antagonist
by FireSeraph007
Summary: Kim and Ron goes to college and faces new challenges. New enemies and friends, new and old come together to take their lives in the new direction.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Editting the formatting a bit just now. Forgot to adjust it earlier. Should be easier to read now.

"Well it's time for me to go..."

"Yeah. I can't believe it myself either. Fourteen years together and now we have to break the team up...this tanks."

"Ron, I'm just only going to meet the Dean of Go City University and moving into my dorm room. It's no big."

"It means you're not the girl next door any more, KP! Can you imagine that? Now I have to walk a whole block away just to meet you!"

"Ron..."

"Okay, okay, okay...I'll deal with it..."

"Yeah...at least we're in the same college. I can't believe that you managed to get in...how did you get into GCU anyways?" Kim Possible arched an eyebrow as she gazed at her boyfriend, Ron Stoppable suspiciously.

He replied her question with a sneaky grin. "Oh...let's just say that the Ron-man took the long way to make sure that he's going to be with his main girl forever."

"Uh huh...yeah..." she raised up her hand and pressed a button on her wrist Kimmunicator. "Wade, you know anything about this?"

The screen on the flickered to life and a boy in his early teens looked at her with a slight smile. "Sorry Kim. Ron's legit on this."

"Really?" Kim looked at her boyfriend in surprise.

"Yeah...Ron got a letter of acceptance a month ago...after sending GCU a thousand letters of applications. I think the post-script on the letter said 'Stop bugging us, kid.'"

She laughed softly and looked at Ron with a slight smile on her lips. "Alright...you did a good job, Ron. So...I'll see you at GCU in a few days then." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek lightly.

"Unless maybe Wade can get us a mission before then," Ron said to her softly, almost teasingly.

"Well...in that case, I'll see you on our next mission then."

PB

"What do you mean, no missions?" Kim asked incredulously, standing up and staring at the man seated before her, who returned her stare with a withering gaze. A nameplate before him read 'Anthony Mancuso, Dean of Go City University.'

"Ms Possible, if you would please be seated?" he gestured to the chair that she had just jumped up from. She continued to glare at him for a moment longer before she sat down once more.

"Now, Ms Possible, we here at GCU are aware of your extra-curricular activities..."

"Which also include saving the world on a regular basis," Kim interjected, still fuming over the situation.

"Of course. Your actions against the alien invaders are to be lauded. However, your activities are still something that the University does not consider to be an actual extra-curricular activity," he says tersely.

"And you've only now decided to tell me this?" Kim asked, feeling rather frustrated at the sudden situation that was now only taking place. All the sweet talking when she first came here, the tour and most importantly, the full scholarship was just too good to be true, it seems.

"We thought it would be best to break the news to you in person and in private..."

"After I signed up with the university?"

He didn't reply to her accusation. "Of course, you could choose to sign up with another university. I've heard that other universities around the world have sent you letters of acceptance as well...but has any of them offered you the same thing that GCU has?" he asked, leaning back against his chair.

She took a deep breath to calm herself down. He had her there: she had overheard her parents talk about the cost of rebuilding their home after the Lowardian invasion and it was huge. GCU's scholarship offer came at the right time and after a tour of the university in the summer convinced her that GCU was the best choice to make given the current situation.

"Now, Ms Possible. We don't expect you to completely quit your world-saving activities..." Kim's heart rose and she looked at him hopefully.

"However, you may only do so if such activities do not interfere with your studies nor may you skip classes to save the world."

"Gee...that's reasonable. I'm sure the bad guys are going to wait for me to finish class before trying to take over the world," she said dryly.

"And that would be extremely reasonable of them," he replied in an equally dry manner. "Now, do we have an agreement?" he asked, leaning forward to look at her.

She gritted her teeth. "For now," she said after a moment to calm her nerves.

PB

"Aah...that man is such a jerk!" Kim complained as she picked up her luggage and walked to her room.

"In the sense that he wants you to have a proper education without the interruptions of having to save the world at the drop of a hat coming in the way of your studies?" her mother remarked, helping her daughter with her stuff.

"Mom, stop trying to make the dean sound like a reasonable person," she retorted to her mother.

Ann smiled that patient smile of hers, nodding at her daughter. "Well, I like that decision. It means your father and I don't have to worry so much about you running off in the middle of class to fight some villain's scheme to take over the world," she said lightly.

"You two didn't seem to worry so much about it when I was in high school."

"Nonsense, Kimmie. Parents always worry about their children, even the ones who are world saving heroes. It's our thing," she pointed out.

Kim sighed and looked away for a moment, quiet as she appeared to be far away in thought.

"Is this about Ron?" Ann asked after another moment had passed.

"Hmm? Yes...no, I don't know really. I mean it's great to be able to see him during missions but...maybe I've just been doing this hero business for so long that I don't really know what to do if I can't do it any more," she said after another moment of silence.

"Live life as a normal college girl?" her mother suggested.

Kim giggled a little. "Mom, when was that ever possible for a Possible?"

"True. You were always meant for bigger things than a normal life. Maybe this hero thing is a normal life for you. Would you want to have it any other way?"

Kim shook her head. "Of course not. Thanks mom," she reached out to give her mother a hug only for her luggage to get in the way, who simply laughed and set down the luggage first before returning the hug.

"Now we better get to your room first before your brothers does...or unless you want them introducing you to your room-mate."

"Oh no..."

PB

"...and this is a picture of Kim when she was five..." Kim could hear one of her brother say as she approached her room, number 387, although whether it was Jim or Tim, she wasn't quite sure.

"Tweebs!" she shouted out angrily as she ran the last few feet and burst into her room. Her brothers were inside the room, talking to a young Indian girl who was looked to be about Kim's age. Startled, she looked up at Kim, her brown eyes blinking behind her glasses. "Kim Possible?" she squeaked, the disbelief strong in her voice.

"Er..." Kim looked at her in embarrassment. "Yeah...that's me...what were my brothers showing you?" she asked, noticing that the twins were quickly hiding something behind their backs.

"Oh...er..." the other girl flushed a little. "No...they didn't show me a picture of you when you were in kindergarten...  
Sighing, she turned her gaze towards her brothers. "Okay tweebs. Out," she said sternly, pointing towards the door where her mother was looking on in amusement.

"Awww...c'mon Kim. We haven't even gotten to the good part yet," Tim complained, as he unzipped his red jacket and pulled out a PDA from under it.

"I am so not asking what it is that is inside that PDA and I don't want to know either. Out, tweebs!" Kim pointed at the door once more.

"C'mon boys. We should let your sister unpack in peace," Anne finally said, gesturing at the twins to follow her out, which they do, each one flicking a grin and a wink at Kim's room-mate, who simply blushed at the attention she was receiving. "See you again, Darnia," Jim called out. "Maybe next time, we'll show you pictures of Kim's boyfriend," he said before Kim slammed the door shut before them.

Kim shook her head in despair before she looked at her room-mate. "Er...Darnia right?" she said, now looking somewhat sheepish.

"Er...yeah...oh I haven't introduced myself yet," she said, still looking rather flustered about what had just happened. "I'm Darnia Darsha and you're Kim Possible, teen hero extraordinaire and multiple time world saver. And now you're my room-mate. Oh my..." she stared at Kim in awe.

"Uh huh...what you said," Kim said, somewhat disoriented by Darnia's words. "So...what are you studying here, Darnia?" she asked, trying to distance the conversation away from herself.

"Oh me? Well I'm here to do telecommunications actually," Darnia said as she adjusted her glasses carefully. "Always was a bit of an internet nerd so it's just seemed like a natural thing for me to do," she gave Kim a shy smile.

"Hey, that's neat, Darnia. Maybe next time if I have some problems with my internet, I'll know who to look for, " Kim said as she began unpacking her belongings.

"Oooh...does that make me your new sidekick?" Darnia asked excitedly, almost bouncing in place.

"No. But you can be a consultant if you like," Kim replied with a smile on her lips. Maybe college wasn't going to be so bad after all.


	2. Chapter 2

Beep, beep be beep.

Yawning, Kim slowly got up and pressed a button on her Kimmunicator. The familiar face of Wade glanced back at her. "Hey Kim. Sorry to bother you while you're sleeping," he said.

"No big...by the way, don't you ever sleep?" she stifled a yawn.

"Who's that?" a female voice asked before Wade could answer Kim's question. It took Kim a moment to place the voice down. "Oh right..." she glanced over at her room-mate Darnia, who was at her computer, hammering away furiously at the keyboard while something flicked around on the monitor.

"Darnia, this is my tech expert Wade. Wade, Darnia, my room-mate," Kim said, showing her Kimmunicator to Darnia.

"Wade? As in Wade Load?" Darnia spun around in her seat and hopped off it, bouncing over to Kim's side. "I think I heard about you. Young genius who just finished his Masters in Quantum Physics and is now about to start his Doctorate?" she asked excitedly.

"Wade, I didn't know you were famous," Kim said with an arch smile, glancing at her Kimmunicator.

"Well not as famous as you but I make do. Anyways, I've got a hit on your site," he said, his tone taking on a slightly more professional manner.

"What's the sitch?"

Something's happening down at the Go City Technological Research Center. An automated alarm was tripped but it went quiet just as fast. When I went to scan the center's security systems, all I got was nothing," Wade said.

"Nothing? What do you mean?" Kim asked as Darnia sat down on Kim's bed and tried to peek at the Kimmunicator.

"Exactly that. The entire security was either wiped out or taken off the grid."

"Have you tried calling the center directly?"

"Already did and I got a dead tone."

"Sounds serious. Get Ron a ride here while I go check it out," Kim said, standing up quickly and accidentally bumping into Darnia's chin as she did so.

"Owww!" the other girl complained loudly as she rubbed her sore chin.

"Oops...sorry..." Kim turned around to look at her sheepishly. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah...I'm fine...my fault for looking over your shoulder...who's Ron?" Darnia asked curiously.

"Oh? He's my boyfriend..."

"You bring your boyfriend with you on your missions like this?"

"We do this all the time. It's no big really," Kim said lightly as she got up again and went to grab her mission clothes from her closet. "I think it's almost five, six years now?" she mused aloud as she headed to the partition to change.

"You've been in the hero business for that long?" Darnia asked, almost in awe.

"Yeah. You wouldn't believe the kind of stuff that happened to us," Kim said with a grin, as she stepped out from behind the partition dressed in her purple shirt and black slacks with purple lining.

"You think I can come with you right now?" Darnia asked suddenly, watching her intently.

"Er...no...sorry..." Kim said quickly. "Not that I think you'll be a bother or anything but it might be dangerous, y'know?" she explained.

"Okay...well...good luck on your mission then," Darnia said, sounding a little crestfallen.

"Thanks and don't worry. It's probably just a guard tripping over the computer system and they're putting it back right now," Kim said reassuringly.

PB

Minutes later, Kim was outside the Go City Technological Research Center, studying it carefully. As was with most research centers she's visited in the past, this one had a rather sterile, practical design that said 'We are so smart, we can't be bothered with pretty designs.' On the plus side, it was also a rather shiny building.

"How much longer until Ron gets here?" she asked Wade.

"ETA 20 minutes. Might be too late by the time he gets here, Kim."

"Gotcha. Can you upload a blueprint of the center into the Kimmunicator?" she asked.

"Kim, what makes you think I have a blueprint of the center with me at all times?"

"Don't you always?"

"Heh...you got me there. Alright, I'm uploading it right now."

"Please and thank you," she smiled as the Kimmunicator beeped, indicating that the upload was complete. She pressed another button and the blueprint was displayed on the screen. "Hmmm...any idea what the bad guys would want to take from the research center?" she asked.

"Could be anything. There's at least a half dozen top secret experiments going on at the center at any time. Usually those experiments are conducted here." A red dot appeared on the Kimmunicator screen.

"Basement levels. Of course," Kim sighed. She made her way towards the main gate and headed for the security checkpoint. She stopped at the console first and pressed a button. "Hello?" she said tentatively. A brief burst of static greeted her, followed by the strange sensation of something crawling on her hand. Glancing down, she immediately regretted the action: ants were crawling all over her hand.

"Ewww...gross..." she shook her hand, flicking away most of the ants. Her eye caught something and she leaned in closer towards the console, gingerly prying it open. A swarm of ants rushed out of the console, revealing a badly chewed up mess of circuit boards and wires.

"Wade, take a look at this," Kim said softly, lifting up her Kimmunicator to show him the mess.

"Whoa...that is weird..." he said. "I'll do a scan for criminals with this type of MO. Shouldn't be too many of then," the screen switched back to the blueprint of the center.

"Yeah, don't want too many other surprises later on," she said. Good thing Ron hadn't shown up yet. He'd probably freak out badly.

PB

Getting into the center wasn't a problem: the front door was open and judging from the door's electronic lock, the same ant-messing method was used to bypass it as well. Inside, the center was dark and quiet; apparently whoever it was that broke into the center had taken out all of the power in the building. Kim reached into her backpack and rummaged around for a bit before she pulled out a set of goggles and slipped it on. Just a push of the button and the world took on a greenish tint, allowing her to see better in the dark.

"Gotta love night-vision. Thanks Wade," she said softly as she began to make her way to the basement level, following the blueprints that was still showing on her Kimmunicator. As she moved through the center, there was one thing that she couldn't help but wonder: why did all the night staff go? She had yet to run into a single person in the center and honestly, it was a little creepy. "Wade, can you hear me?" she raised her wrist to her lips, speaking softly as she scanned the area for the entrance to the basement level.

"Yeah, what's up Kim?" His voice was a welcome relief to the disheartening quiet.

"Nothing. Just need to hear someone's voice. It's too quiet in here. I haven't seen a single guard yet," she said, spotting the entrance and she darted quickly and stealthily towards it.

"That bad? I'll see if I can get Ron to hurry up," he said. Moments later, a familiar voice piped up, "KP! Sorry I'm late! There's this thing going on with some chickens and a cow in the jet and you don't want to see it at all 'cause it's just sick and wrong!"

"I'll take your word for it. How much longer before you get here? I might need the assist. Whoever that's behind this sitch is a pro. No one in the building at all."

"Five minutes if I get off the jet now and start jumping around."

"Then take off now and start hopping to it," she ordered. The entrance to the basement, a set of elevator doors, was now before her, forced open and the security console next to it was similarly wrecked, just like all the consoles that she had encountered so far.

"Starting to really not like this sitch at all," she murmured to herself as she stepped into the elevator. The buttons inside were smashed, as though by something rather large and there was a hole in the ground, which Kim had avoided stepping into purely by luck. She glanced down at the hole before launching her grappling hook into the ceiling of the elevator and she dove through the hole. According to the blueprints, the elevator went down for about sixty feet; Wade had reassured her that her line was a hundred feet long.

Soon she could see the ground and she pressed a button on her Kimmunicator, causing the line to slow down and allowing her to land on the ground quietly. A second button pressed and the line started to reel back in. She glanced around and saw the elevator exit, a large gash torn between the doors.

Beep, beep be beep "Go, Wade."

"Got a possible suspect who's MO fits the whole use-ants-to-break-into-places schtick. His name's Antropy and he's a small time villain here in Go City. Team Go has tangled with him before but their last confrontation was several years ago, back when Shego was still with them," Wade started to say.

"Did he had, by any chance, super-strength?"

"Nope. The file indicates that he uses an extreme low-frequency sound emitter that mimics the sounds that ants make in order to confuse them and get them to obey his commands instead. Why?"

She turned the Kimmunicator screen towards the elevator door.

"Uh oh."

"We're going to need back up. Get through to Team Go and ask them to pitch in for this. And check on Ron for me, make sure that he's prepped and that he knows what he's in for," she said before she turned her attention towards the door and nimbly climbed up and through the hole.

"Already tried to contact Team Go earlier, Kim but I got their voicemail instead. Something about finally going on a superhero cruise around the world together as a family minus Shego. Know anything about that?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Guess I'm going to have to go this alone until Ron gets here. I'll call you if I need anything," she said before she cut the call.

This sitch was looking to be a lot more interesting than it had a right to be.


	3. Chapter 3

The ruined elevator doors lead out into a straight hallway where a bright light at the end forced Kim to turn off her night vision goggles. She kept her eyes closed for a few seconds more so that her eyes could get more easily adjusted to the lighting conditions before she opened them once more and stealthily made her way towards the light.

As she approached the end of the hallway, she could pick up strange chittering and clattering sounds that echoed all over her, sending an involuntary shiver up her spine. There was something disturbingly familiar about the sounds but she can't quite place it yet.

As for the light itself, it revealed itself to be another hole where a wall used to be. Kim carefully climbed over the ruins, her eyes darting around as she searched for the source of the chittering. Nothing at the moment but she was certain it would reveal itself sooner or later.

The hallway opened up into a large circular room that was surprisingly clear of any sort of debris. At every 36 degree, there was a door, but only one door was open and next to it was a placard marked 'QBFG' and a security console that was positively crawling with ants.

"Guess we now sort of know what this Antropy guy is after," Kim murmured to herself and she crept over to the door. As far as she could tell, there seemed to be no traps left behind so she walked through the door and headed in, eyes darting all over to make sure that there wasn't any ambush.

Beyond the door, she saw a man dressed in a black suit, complete with a bizarre mask that completely covered his head and it appeared to her that he was fiddling around with a rather science-y looking device that was the size of a car, pulling levers and flipping switches. It took her a brief moment to recognize what the mask was exactly: an ant's head. An involuntary shudder ran down her shoulder. Villains were definitely getting weirder as the years passed. On the other hand, this guy's a superhero's villain and the two Team Go villains she fought were plenty weird.

Time for her to make an entrance. Her legs tensed for a brief moment before she jumped to the left, firing a hooked line from her wrist Kimmunicator at the man. With a practiced flick, the line wrapped itself neatly around his waist and using the momentum of her leap, she pulled him away from the device, causing to shout a rather distorted cry of surprise.

"Feeling a little antsy today?" she said, her line rapidly reeling back into her Kimmunicator with a quick flick of her wrist. Okay, so far so good. This guy looked like he's a bit of a pushover, she thought as she watched him get back onto his feet. He turned to look at her, affixing her with a stare, or at least she think he was; it's hard to tell with the ant head that he was using as a mask.

"Kim Possible," he said, his voice sounding rather heavily distorted. Was it electrical or something else, she wondered for a brief moment before she took on a confident pose.

"You heard of me. I'm flattered," she smiled at him. "Can't say the same about you though. You haven't done this world domination business before, I take it?"

"There is a first time for everything," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "You've never really heard of me before? Not even a bit?" he asked again, his hand reaching behind his back slowly. She noticed his action and pointed her Kimmunicator at him, the tip of her hooked line glinting.

"Well," he continued, pretending that she hadn't noticed his actions. "Since you don't know my name, I am Antropy, master of Vespoidea Formicidae. A billion ants for each human on this planet, their potential is beyond ours and mine to tap into!" he said, the excitement apparent in his voice despite the distortion. Apparently, ranting is a must-have for every villain, Kim noted wryly to herself.

"But first, before I can continue on the next phase of my plan, I will have take care of a little distraction in front of me," he said and lifted up his hands, revealing...nothing in them.

"Oh really? And just how are you going to..." her words were interrupted by a sudden increase in the volume of the chitterings and a constant trembling in the ground. A chill ran down Kim's spine and her head shot around as hundreds of giant ant heads began bursting out of the walls, ceiling and floors.

"With my army of giant Formicidae of course."

PB

She wanted to scream, but nothing came out from her lips, save ragged breathing. She was hyperventilating, she realized dimly in the corner of her mind. Giant ants...and each one roughly the size of a panther. Something that she should have expected but this time around she got a little cocky and she ended up treating Antropy like he wasn't a threat.

She tried to move; her body refused to obey. Fear paralysis. Ron had plenty of fear attacks in the day, he reacted by running around screaming, hers was apparently to freeze up in place.

"Wait...this can't be true can it?" she heard Antropy say as if from a faraway place. "The great Kim Possible is afraid of insects? No wait...you didn't have a problem with the normal-sized ones earlier so that means your fear is giant ants?" He started to cackle loudly at this realization.

She tried to slow her breathing down, tried to calm herself by thinking happy thoughts. It didn't really help much; fear was a lot stronger than positive thinking but it did help. Now she could at least move her limbs, even though they were trembling wildly. Not going to be able to fight in this shape. She was going to have to think of something to do.

"Okay Kim...you can do this...flick-able ants...flick-able ants...flick-able ants..." she repeated to herself as the ants began converging on her.

"Well, so long Kim Possible. I'd love to stay and watch you deal with your rather large phobia but I do have some work to finish up," Antropy said, sounding extremely amused by the whole matter, as one of the giant ant scuttled over to his side and pulled up the science device that he was fiddling with earlier from the ground with very little effort. It placed the device on its back and quickly scuttled away from the room down one of the holes that was made earlier.

"Now, my minions...attack Kim Possible and make sure she never leaves this place ever!" he shouted and turned to leave through another hole. As one, the giant ants scuttled towards her with startling speed.

Hundred of giant ants rushing at her and her instincts told her to not move so that this nightmare would go away. Bad idea. With a scream of anguish, she forced her body into action, leaping up into the air mere moments before the first wave of ants could hit her and they crashed into each other instead, emitting a shrill thrill of what she hoped was pain. Flipping through the air, she landed on the thorax of another one of the ants ("Ewww, ewww, ewww!") with a heavy thump, causing it to buckle and collapse to the ground under her weight.

"Wait! I'm not that heavy!" she protested, her fear momentarily forgotten. Another one of the ants lunged at her, its wicked looking mandible gnashing the air menacingly. Instead of telling her to freeze, this time her instincts pushed her to jump towards the ant and she soared through the air, both her feet landing on the mandibles. She jumped up into the air a third time, using the ant as a springboard and she threw her hand upwards wildly, launching her grappling hook towards the ceiling.

The hook slammed into the ceiling and held on tightly and quickly she reeled herself up into the air, as fast as it could get her away from the ants. Luckily for her, there weren't any more ants coming out of the ceilings although she could see that her luck was about to take a turn for the worse: the ants were now scuttling towards the walls and were making their way to her.

"Aaaaah..." she screamed, her voice taking a pitch towards the higher end; her heart thudding rapidly inside her chest...wait a minute...did the ants just paused in their tracks for a second there? Her mind worked rapidly...maybe, just maybe it might work...

She pulled herself up towards her Kimmunicator, just enough so that she could frantically push every single button on it. "C'mon Wade...please..." she muttered loudly as the ants skittered closer and closer towards her. She could practically feel their snapping mandibles drawing ever so closer with each fumbling push of the button she made on the Kimmunicator...

One button push later and her Kimmunicator begin to emit a high pitched whine. "Yes!" she cheered as the giant ants stopped closing in on her her, their heads twitching about in what appears to be pain and confusion. The whine continued on unabated and as one, the giant ants let out a ululating thrill and they turned away from her, retreating back through the holes that they originated from.

To play it safe, Kim allowed the whine to play for another minute before she halted it and she lowered herself onto the ground. "Thank you, hyper-sonic emission," she said as she simply sat down on the floor, not noticing that her knees were still trembling wildly from the scare.

"KP!" Her head jerked up almost immediately when she heard Ron's voice calling her name and she saw her boyfriend racing towards her. A wide smile broke up on her lips and she got up to her feet once more, pushing her fear back into her mind. "Ron!" she walked towards him and as he approached her, she reached out with her hand and flicked him on his forehead. "You're late," she said sternly.

"Late? Awww man...what did I miss this time?" he said, the disappointment apparent in his voice and his downcast look. "I was looking forward to busting out the monkey moves, KP."

"You'll get your chance. Hey...do you have a place to stay for the night?" she asked him. "This might take a while to fill you in."


	4. Chapter 4

"He's giving us the eye again, KP," Ron whispered to Kim as they walked away from the hotel reception.

"What eye?" she turned to look back at the receptionist, who looked away quickly, pretending to be busy at work.

"A wink and a thumbs up," Ron shrugged. "So...what's the sitch, Kim? Heh...I used your catchphrase..." he sniggered to himself.

"Focus, Ron," she said sternly as the two of them headed over to the elevator.

"Relax, KP. Mission time's over. The Ron-man gets to chill-ax with his girl in a sweet hotel...oh, so that's what the winking and thumbs up is all about..." his voice trailed out as his eyes glazed over.

"Ron..."

"Sorry, KP. Thinking clean thoughts now," he said quickly as they entered the elevator. "Anyways, you were saying something about this bug-man?"

"His name's Antropy, a Team Go villain who decided to step up big time, literally in this case," she made a slight face before pressing a button on the elevator.

"Still with the big bug issue, Kim?" he asked a little incredulously. "I thought you got over it already?"

"By staying away from the landfill," she pointed out, watching the number increase on the elevator indicator. Since Ron didn't know anyone here in Go City beside herself and his dorm room wasn't ready yet due to his last minute acceptance, they had decided that it was best that he room in a hotel first for now.

A soft chime indicated that they had arrived at their destination and the elevator door opened, allowing them to step out. "Kim, I can't believe I'm going to have to say this, but you're going to need to deal with your giant bug issues if we're going to have to deal with this bug-man," Ron said as they walked over to his room.

"Yeah I know but I've got the roach-whisperer with me now. I was hoping you could deal with them so that I don't have to deal with the issue at all," she pouted at him.

"Aargh...puppy-dog pout...one of my many weaknesses...cannot resist..." he said in mock agony before he leaned in and give her a quick peck on her lips. "Fine...I'll deal with the bugs, you deal with the man and we'll save the day just like we always do," he grinned at her.

"Spankin'," she grinned back as they arrived at his room. "You get some sleep and I'll meet up with you in the morning so that we can talk about Antropy, 'kay?"

"It's a date, KP."

"Great. Now I just have to get back to my dorm before the dean notices that I went out on hero business."

"Right...wait, what's this about the dean finding out the hero business? I thought everyone knew that you're a hero," Ron asked in confusion.

She made a face. "Talk to you about it tomorrow," she gave him a quick peck on his lips before she darted off.

PB

By the time Kim got back to her dorm room, it was nearly 2 am. Darnia was already asleep, although Kim did wonder exactly what time did her room-mate fell asleep. Stifling a yawn, she slipped into her bed and closed her eyes. So far, so good. While they had lost the device to Antropy, at least no one was hurt. Ron had found the missing personnel trapped inside the locker room with the electronic lock malfunctioning, hence his lateness tonight. And tonight was a night when Kim could use all of the good news that was available to her, she thought as she slowly drifted to sleep.

Sleep wasn't the welcome rest that she'd hoped for though; she could hear the clicking of ant mandibles inside her head all throughout her sleep, causing her to wake up every hour or so. It was almost dawn when she was actually able to get some real rest and even then it was cut short by her alarm ringing at 8 in the morning.

"Hey, Kim," Darnia said shyly to Kim when the latter rose from her bed. Kim's room-mate was already at her computer, the monitor showing a website called Chumster. "Had bad dreams?" she asked.

"Terrible ones. How did you guess?"

"The hourly screams gave me an idea."

"Sorry..." Kim said in embarrassment.

"It's okay. Something bad happened last night?" Darnia asked curiously, turning away from her computer to look at Kim, adjusting her glasses as she did so.

"Run in with a really icky villain. It's no big," Kim says dismissively as she headed to the washroom to freshen up. She was back a few minutes later, feeling and looking a lot better.

"Need to know basis only or can you spill?" Darnia asked when Kim returned.

Kim thought about it for a moment before she shook her head. Her pride was at stake here. "I can say that the villain escaped and I'll be on the lookout to get him behind bars," she said. So that I don't have to deal with those giant bugs ever again, she added mentally.

"Maybe I can help you with that?" Darnia asked, sounding a little excited. "Wow...you really want to get into this hero business gig huh?" Kim asked her.

"Er...Not really. I mean I don't know. It looks very exciting when I see you roundhouse some guy on TV but I'm not that sort of person. I think it's more to say to my friends and family that the great Kim Possible asked me for help on something that only I can do," she admitted.

That made Kim laugh a little. "Alright, fan-girl. Since you want to help me so much, do you think you can do a search for this guy called Antropy and what a QBFG is?" she asked.

"Ooooh...I have no idea what those are and I'm gonna find out. How do I get in touch with you once I get the info?" Darnia said excitedly and she turned back to her computer to get started on her new task.

"You think you can send it to my Kimmunicator if I give you its frequency?" Kim pointed at her watch. Darnia stared at the watch for a moment before she nodded her head and so Kim gave her the frequency for her to contact her via her watch.

Well, at least someone was happy about this, Kim thought as she watched her room-mate tear into the web. She had already ask Wade to start searching for more clues about the topics that she had just asked Darnia to searched for the night before but if it would make her happy, she didn't mind a second report even if it was a repeat.

Now if she could only get some good news herself.

PB

Or maybe not, Kim thought as she sat in front of Dean Mancuso, who was looking at his computer screen with a sharp look of annoyance on his face. It was sometime after 9 am at the moment; she was sure that Ron was waiting at the hotel cafe right now for her to arrive.

The dean stroked his clean-shaven chin and adjusted his horn-rimmed glasses, clearly intent on dragging out the discomfort for as long as he could. "Ms Possible," he started to say finally.

She opened her mouth to speak but he cut her off with a sharp wave of his hand. "No I don't want to hear what your excuse is for sneaking out in the middle of the night, especially just hours after I personally told you that you are not to undertake any sort of world-saving business..."

"First, how did you know that I snuck out of my room? Secondly, classes hasn't started yet so my missions are not cutting into my studies nor are they disrupting my classes," Kim interrupted him. High school was so much easier than this, she thought as she glared at him.

Mancuso turned his monitor so that it was facing her and that she could get a look of a video of her leaving the university grounds. From the looks of it, she guessed it was one of the wall mounted university cameras. "As for your second point, though you are technically correct and you did not infringe on our agreement, I did not expect you to go on a 'mission' so soon after our little talk," he continued to say as if she had not interrupted him.

"The world needed saving, Mr Mancuso. I can't just sit by and watch while some weird guy in an ant outfit breaks into a research center and steal a..."  
The dean lifted up his hand to cut her off again. "Ms Possible, as far as I can see, the world is still around is it not?" he asked.

"Yes but..."

"Were you able to thwart this thief from getting away with whatever it is that he was burgling from this research center that you went to last night?" he asked again.

"No," she said warily, wondering where he was going with this line of questioning.

"Are you losing your touch, Ms Possible? I've always heard that you foil your opponents every time you meet them. Maybe it's time for you to retire from this business and just focus on your studies. Be a normal girl for a change," he said, his stern demeanor taking a more kindly and friendly one. Now this sudden change in behavior took her by surprise. What was he trying to do here?

"No, I'm not trying to be harsh with you, Ms Possible," he said, as if reading her thoughts. "It's just that in my experience, high fliers like yourself tend to fly so high that they forget that once upon a time, they're still beings that walk on the ground. Too many activities, and buried in their mile tall volumes of books until they forget that they are only young once. They forget how to enjoy themselves and treat their college life like the learning experience that it's supposed to be," he said, looking a little distant.

"I...I don't know what to say, Mr Mancuso..." Kim was at a lost for words. Maybe Mom was right about this guy after all, she thought.

"Just say that you will consider putting a halt to your world-saving rhetoric. College will one of the best time of your life, if you're willing to at least slow down and give it a try. It may not be like your world-saving antics but I promise you, it will be the experience of a lifetime," he said with a smile.

She took a deep breath and sighed. "I'll...consider it, Mr Mancuso," she said finally after a long moment of deliberation.

He smiled back at her. "I'm glad to hear it, Ms Possible. You won't regret it, I promise you. Now...you are excused. I have some urgent matters that I need to attend to," he said and stood up, gesturing towards the door.

She got up and walked a little numbly towards the door, still unable to understand exactly what was going on when he closed the door behind her with a soft click.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's note: Am going to take this chance to thank both CajunBear73, Sentinel103 and the one anonymous guest for their reviews thus far and also to everyone else who's been following and reading this little story of mine. And the answer to the question asked is Chemistry, why? Though seriously, it's not like I've been hiding that fact now have I?

* * *

"Kim, were you seriously considering what the dean was telling you?" Ron asked in disbelief as they sat in a corner booth in the Go City's Mucho Grande Bueno Nacho outlet. Ron had two sets of nacos in front of him, although he was only eating one at the moment, whereas Kim was slowly picking at a bowl of salad.

"Ron, of course not," Kim said in protest and she stabbed into her salad with her fork. "But he went all grand-daddy face on me, like he really cares. How could I say no to him?"

"So you got puppy-dogged by an old man?"

"Well, when you put it that way..."

"Of course he could just be the villain of the hour and he's trying to stop you from doing the hero business," Ron suggested innocently, as he took a huge mouthful of his naco.

"Normally I'd say paranoid much, but yeah...he could be that Antropy guy," she mused aloud.

"So, why not just go and pound him until he confesses?"

"And if he's not? I could lose the scholarship, Ron. None of the other universities offered me a full one and I don't want to risk losing this deal. At least, not until we get something solid," she explained to him.

Something popped out of Ron's pocket and did a little high pitched yawn before scrambling up onto the table. "Rufus, glad to see you're finally awake," Ron grinned at his pet naked mole rat before handing him the untouched set of naco.

"Hello!" Rufus chirped at Ron and Kim before he dove into his naco, tearing through it like a lawn mower in an overgrown field.

Kim gave the little guy an affectionate smile and reached down to stroke his head before she looked up at her boyfriend again. "Besides, I don't think we'll have to worry about me quitting this business; I've got to do a lot of things that no one else can do, I've seen the world a thousand times over plus the boys I meet are a lot cuter," she grinned.

He grinned back. "And the girls are way better too, don't forget that," he said. "Glad to see that you're not going to be quitting any time soon, KP."

"Good, now that all this quitting business is dealt with, there's still the bug issue that Go City has right now," Kim said, her face quickly switching to business mode.

"Yeah, you really think you don't want to face your giant bug issue? I mean you might want to tackle it head on sooner or later especially if another bad guy comes along and decides to use the exact same schtick as this one," Ron started to say.

"I mean, do we have any idea what it is this guy is after," Kim said with a snippy undertone in her voice, trying to divert the attention away to what she felt was the more pressing issue.

"It's a take over the world thing. You said he wanted to show people the untapped potential of a lot of bugs, right?"

"Long term yeah. But what about short term, as in what does he want to do with this thing called a QBFG?" she said and tapped her Kimmunicator to contact Wade. "Wade, did you find out what a QBFG is?" Kim asked when her friend showed up on screen.

"Quantum Blockade Field Generator," he said with a slight grin. "Extremely high end theoretical stuff and apparently a work in progress at the Go City Technological Center. I'll save you the techno-babble and just say that in theory, this device is suppose to be able to shield people from any kind of cosmic irradiation whenever they go into space and with an extremely small energy source too since it collects the energy that it needs from the molecular movements of electrons that orbit around an atom and..."

"Not saving us from the techno-babble, Wade," Kim said wryly.

"Oh sorry, guys," he said sheepishly. "So yeah, there you have it. A shield generator device that's supposed to be used only in space," he concluded.

"Then why would this Antropy guy want to use this Quantum Blockade Field Generator? How would cosmic shielding be applicable to his schtick?" Kim asked.

"Good question, but no idea yet Kim. I'll continue digging into this and will let you know as soon as I come up with some ideas about it. Oh and Kim, did you ask someone else to dig up stuff about the QBFG and Antropy?" Wade gave her a good long stare.

"Er...yeah...why?" she asked, looking guiltily at him.

"I hope you're not trying to replace me as your tech guy. This other person is pretty good actually. No where near as good as I am though of course. Doesn't have much experience in the being sneaky part but there's a little potential there. " he broke out in a smile. "Whoever it is should be contacting you in 3,2,1..."

Beep, beep be beep. Wade's image was replaced with a new e-mail message. Kim grinned at him. "Thanks for the heads up Wade. I'll check the info and compare notes then. Catch you later, Wade."

"Bye, Kim." The screen went blank and she looked back at Ron and Rufus, both of whom were looking at expectantly. "New sidekick to replace your old one?" Ron asked with a smirk.

"Seeing that my old one got a promotion to actual partnership in more ways than one, I'd figured the sidekick position needed some fulfilling," she smirked back before she leaned in to kiss him.

PB

Two hours later, the pair had finished their meal and meeting and had bid each other a fond farewell. Sadly for the two of them, Ron had to go back to Middleton: he had to finish up packing his stuff but otherwise he would be in Go City in another two days so it wasn't too much longer before they were re-united once more.

On the other side of news, Darnia's e-mail was nothing more than just a repeat of Wade's report received earlier, although there was a whole lot of links for Kim to click on in case she wanted to do some further reading on Antropy and the QBFG. She gave up after a few minutes of reading though; too much to read and a lot of having to research terms and meanings.

And then there was the dean matter. While she did appreciate that he was looking out for her best interests, being the second person that she knew who tried to look out for her safety and all (the first being Ron, in a weirdly romantic way), it was also a bit annoying. She was going to need to figure a way to sneak out without getting caught by him.

As she drove back to her campus in her car (a present from her twin brothers last year), she thought about the problem for a while before she got an idea and hit a button on her dashboard, which revealed a screen that had Wade's face on it. "Need another favor from you, Wade," she said to him, grinning at him deviously.

"What kind of favor?" he asked, sounding a little interested.

"You think you could hack into GCU's security system and install a sort of program so that I'd never be caught whenever I have to go on missions?"

"Kim, I'm shocked that you would ask me to even attempt such an unethical thing? We're supposed to be the good guys here, not criminals! This is the sort of thing that...okay, you're good to go. Now you're practically invisible to GCU cameras," he said with a grin.

"Spankin'. You're the man, Wade," Kim said before she hung up on him. Good, that takes care of that one problem. Now she'll need to deal with Antropy when the time comes.

PB

She arrived back at her dorm within half an hour and entered her room to find Darnia sitting on her own bed, looking at her intently. "Well?" she asked. "Did I do good?"

Kim gave her a friendly smile. "You did great. Wade said you had some potential," she replied.

"Wade said...I was being graded?" She squealed in excitement before she got up and started bouncing on the bed. "And I passed too!"

It took another ten minutes for Kim to get Darnia to stop bouncing on the bed.

PB

Later that night, the familiar four tone beep sounded on Kim's watch. Fortunately for her, she had taken a good long nap before then and she was feeling rather bouncy at the moment, ready to take on Antropy if he dared to stick his head out of whatever anthill he lived in.

"What's the sitch, Wade?" she asked.

"I've managed to triangulate a possible hideout for Antropy based on his previous hits and tremor readings in Go City. It is probably located underneath this hill in Go City Park," Wade said as his face zoomed out so that he could show her a map of said park. A red blinking light indicated which hill he was referring to.

"Great. Did you call Ron?" she asked as she jumped out of her bed and quickly went to change into her mission clothes. Luckily for her, Darnia was already fast asleep so she didn't have to worry about how to handle her room-mate's inquiries.

"Before I called you. I hooked him up with a much faster flight, so he should be there by the time you reach the park."

"What kind of flight if you don't mind me asking?" Kim asked curiously.

"Suborbital flight."

"Right...hope his stomach can handle the G's," she said as she fastened her belt around her waist.

"Oh Kim...there's something you should know about this Antropy guy."

"What is it?"

"On a hunch, I made a quick check on Professor Acari's Roflax and it's still with him. So that means..."

"Either Antropy made his own version of the Roflax or he's using something else to make his giant ick-ies," Kim made a face as she said it. "So that puts him on Dementor's level at least?"

"Yes. I'd send you the battle-suit if I can but I'm still ironing one or two kinks in it and you don't want to be wearing it right now."

"How bad?"

"Explosions every twenty seconds bad."

"And the matter just blew up in my face. Anything you can do to give me an edge against Antropy?" she asked.

"I'm uploading a sonic pulse dis-charger application into your Kimmunicator. Much more potent than the hyper-sonic emission that we've installed previously and you can even focus it in a tight wave for a more solid punch. Only problem with it is that it need about three seconds to cool-down after each use but I'm also leaving the hyper-sonic emission application in so that you can have something for any situation."

She smiled broadly at his words. "Alright...I'm ready to exterminate some giant bugs then." It's just so much easier to deal with your fears when you can blast them away, after all.


	6. Chapter 6

The night air was cool when Kim arrived at the Go City park. On an ordinary day, she'd figured she'd find a way to get Ron to bring her here on a date instead of Bueno Nacho but tonight they've got something else even better to do.

She made her to the hill indicated on the Kimmunicator as quietly as she could and craned her neck about for any signs of her boyfriend. Wade said he should be here by...

She saw something in the sky a moment later and she squinted her eyes to take a closer look. Hmmm...flailing arms against the moon. Yup, that's Ron, she grinned a little. Some things never really do change.

Without a moment's pause, she jumped up onto a nearby tree, spring-boarding from branch to branch until she was at the very top of the tree, which was about 50 feet up in the air. Standing on the highest branch, she held onto the top with one hand while she jabbed on the screen with her chin. "Ron, honey?" she called out before she lifted her arm up and fired a flare from the Kimmunicator.

"Was the bright shiny light you?" he screamed back. Terminal velocity still frightened him, it seemed.

"Free-fall towards it. I'll catch you before you crash to the ground," she said reassuringly.

"KP, what are you trying to do?"

She didn't answer him as she squinted into the air and watched Ron plummet to the ground faster. No big, she thought. Just time everything right and he'll be safe in my arms tonight, she thought again. She counted backwards from five as he fell and at two, she fired the grappling hook up into the air.

"Ron, grab the hook!" she shouted as the line fired up into the air at him. She didn't hear him answer but she did feel the line go taut when the line reached its limit. Grinning, she jumped up as high as she could, letting her body relax a little before she activated the reel-towards function of her grappling line, propelling herself against gravity towards her target: Ron Stoppable.

"Kim!" he called out when they could see each other a second before she collided into him. He let out a whoosh of air as she shoulder-checked him and they flew higher up into the air. The quick glance she spared at him told her that his primary and secondary parachute had both failed to deploy. "Kim, we're going the wrong way!" he shouted in her ear.

"Good!" she shouted back as she turned around while they started to fall once more. "More time to aim!"

"Huh?" his fear turned to confusion. "What's that suppose to mean?"

She fired her grappling line again and it propelled out once more into the tree that she had jumped from earlier. Again she felt the line go taut when the hook connected to the tree and with a practiced flick, she set the line to slowly reel them in while she twisted her body in mid-air so that she and Ron were going around in a loop.

With practiced timing, she looped the rope down and around the tree, neatly avoiding most of the branches on their way down before she released the hook when they were a few feet above ground, causing the two of them to fall and roll on the ground, Kim naturally ending on top of Ron.

"KP, did I ever mention how hot you are when you're saving me?" Ron asked as he stared up at her.

"No, but you could stand to tell me that more often. Girls like to hear that from the boys they love," she smiled at him before she got off and helped him up to his feet. "C'mon. We've got a job to do before we can have some fun."

"Right...right..." he said as he slowly got up to his feet. At that moment, Rufus stuck himself out of Ron's pocket and stretched for a bit before he noticed Kim and waved at her, before he pulled and tugged on Ron's pants, chittering in excitement.

"Oh yeah. Wade wanted me to hand you these," he reached into his backpack, pulling away the tangled remains of two parachutes and took out a dozen pellets from it before he handed them to Kim.

She quirked an eyebrow and called her tech expert. "Wade, what are these things?" she asked.

"Anti-bug smoke bombs. Just toss them at the bugs and Wade says that they won't be able to figure out where you are," he replied.

She nodded and slipped down into one of the pouches that hung from her belt. "Always good to be prepared," she said before she looked at Ron and Rufus. "Alright...let's get our show on the road, boys."

PB

The three of them found the entrance into Antropy hideout easily enough: a hole in the eastern side of the hill covered with tarp, dirt, leaves and branches to make sure that the average passerby wouldn't notice it.

Kim nodded at Ron, who immediately took point and went up to the entrance, poking his head through it. Now this was something different, she noted with a bit of pride as she watched him motion at her to follow him. The fight against the Lowardians had certainly boosted his confidence tremendously. She nodded to him and quickly moved in close, her steps quiet and light as she entered the hill, Ron having already entered the hill.

It was dark inside so Kim reached for her night vision goggles and slipped them on, looking around for Ron. He was about twenty feet ahead of her, with a pair of night vision goggles on as well and waiting for her. As soon as he saw her, he flashed her a quick smile and began to move down the narrow passage that they were in.

The walk down the passage was an uneventful one and the sounds of their footsteps was the only thing that reached their ears. After a while though, the faint strains of chittering and thousands of footsteps reached their ears; looks like there were people home. A shiver ran down her spine and she almost froze in place but a reassuring touch from Ron's hand calmed her down and she nodded at him.

After another minute of walking, the passage started to widen and the sounds that they've been hearing grew louder, mixed in with a different sound: metal clicking against metal, as if someone was building something. Kim gave Ron a curious look, who returned the look. Something weird was going on here.

Since it was still dark, they kept their goggles on and they kept on creeping down the widening passageway as it lead into a circular chamber. Before they could enter it, a giant ant walked pass the entrance and quickly Kim and Ron pressed themselves against the walls to avoid detection. The ant didn't notice them and it walked away, carrying what looks like to be a primitive looking circuit board.

She looked at him, arching her eyebrow. "Now that is weird..." she said. "Are they trying to make something?"

"That is just...weird and wrong...what exactly do you think they're doing?" he whispered to her. "Making a bigger version of the QBFG thingie?"

"Maybe. But it doesn't explain what it is that ants want to have a cosmic radiation shielding process for," she whispered back. Before he could answer her, she placed a hand on his lips. "Figure out later. Stop ants now," she pointed at the chamber where another ant passed them.

He nodded and poked his pocket, causing Rufus to crawled out. "Recon time, little guy," he whispered to him and took a tiny camera from his other pocket to hand to the naked mole rat. Rufus took the camera and scuttled off into the chamber with a flash of a toothy grin.

"New toy for Rufus?" Kim glanced at Ron.

"From Wade. Check out your Kimmunicator," he gestured at the watch. She turned on the screen and saw that there was a icon that read 'Rufus-cam' on the screen now. She tapped the icon and the screen changed to a shaky video of the chamber.

"Spankin'. Why didn't we think of this earlier?" she asked Ron, who simply shrugged and the two of them returned their attention to the Kimmunicator. The grainy camera view showed them a relatively large room, similar in size to the room that Kim first met Antropy in the previous night. Giant ants were scuttling around, half of them bearing some sort of item on their back, be it a circuit board or metal sheet or even what looks like a transistor made out of quartz that had a strange sheen to them whereas the other half are attaching those parts to something that she recognized as a large replica of the QBFG.

"Ahem." Kim glanced at Ron, who was giving her a victorious smirk and she rolled her eyes at him.

"Okay...he's trying to build a replica of the QBFG but that still doesn't explain why. Also I don't see Antropy anywhere," she whispered back to Ron. "Rufus, can you go see if you can find a weird guy wearing an ant head anywhere in this room?" she asked.

"Okay!" the camera nodded up and down and for a minute, Rufus ran about the entire room before shaking the camera left and right to say that he couldn't find Antropy.

"He probably just ordered the ants to build the device while he's elsewhere, making his own plans for world domination," Ron offered as an explanation to Kim.

"I suppose..." she said, although she doubted it. Super-villains aren't usually the type who leave things to their minions unsupervised. Something is a little weird here but she didn't know what it was.

She shook her head. It wasn't important right now. She'll figure it all out later, she thought as she turned her attention to Ron. "Anyways, now we're going to need a plan on how we're busting down this operation," she said, looking at the chamber with a slight shudder.

Ron nodded at her. "How about the usual plan then? Ron, distraction. Kim, blow up doomsday device. Never failed to work," he suggested.

"Okay but if they touch you, you'll need to wash off before I'm ever touching you again."

"KP, that is some serious giant bug issue you have there."

"Says the guy who still can't flick the little ones," she retorted before she adopted a serious look on her face. "You ready for this?"

"Always, KP."

"Alright...on three..."

"Three!" he shouted and charged into the chamber before Kim. She grinned and waited for three seconds before she ran in after him.

As Kim ran into the chamber, she could see that Ron was already doing a good job of distracting the giant ants, waving his arms as he jumped and ran in their midst. In fact, most of the ants had already turned in his way, their antennas twitching as they closed in on him. She spared a quick glance to make sure that he was doing fine before she returned her gaze to the ant's device.

The few ants that were still working on the device noticed her and started to converge in on Kim but an expertly tossed capsule in their midst released a strange-smelling smoke cloud. She gagged as she ran through the cloud but apparently the ants had it worse; they were thrashing around inside the cloud and a few even started attacking each other. She almost felt sorry for them; almost being the operative word here.

Since her vision was mildly obscured by the smoke, Kim nearly bumped into the device but she stopped herself in the nick of time and she made a quick circle around it, looking for what might be a weak spot or a particular sensitive location that she could attack to topple it. She didn't find any.

She grumbled to herself. Guess she was going to have to make her own weak spots in this device then. She pointed the Kimmunicator at the device and took aim at an unprotected piece of circuitry within the device. One push of a button and she fired a focused sonic pulse at the device, which appeared to be a very sharp sounding boom that slammed into the device, leaving a large hole where she had aimed earlier and sending her flying back a few feet onto her back, along with several large chunks of metal and quartz.

"KP!" she heard Ron call out to her as she slowly got up and she looked around, just in time to see a giant ant opening its mandibles to take a bite at her. She let out a tiny scream of fright but luckily her fighting instincts kicked in before her fear ones and she lashed out with her foot, catching the ant on its head and she used the force of her kick to launch her back towards the device, mere moments before Ron exploded in an aura of light that somehow didn't send Kim's night vision goggles into overload and launched himself from his previous position, landing on the ant with a loud crunch.

"Alright...nobody's going to get a bite out of my girl! It's monkey time!" he shouted as he got down on all fours, the aura around him coalescing and taking on the shape of a fiery monkey. Almost immediately, every single ant stopped in their tracks and stared hard at Ron, transfixed by his glowing aura.

"Err...KP...what's going on here?" Ron asked nervously, though he still maintained his monkey aura and stance. "This is seriously weirding me out here..."

"Not sure...but good distraction, Ron!" Kim flashed him a thumbs up and she reached into her pouch, pulling out three capsules and hurled them into the ants' midst. The effects were instantaneous and chaotic: the ants began thrilling about after their senses were deprived by the smoke and Ron charged the ants once more, kicking and punching them as hard as he could.

"Save boyfriend, check," Kim muttered to herself and she fired another sonic pulse at the device again. The pulse struck the device and caused it to explode with a loud bang, releasing a huge shock-wave. This time though she was ready for that and when the wave struck her, she flowed with the momentum, riding the shock-wave towards the giant blue glow that was Ron.

"Ron! You okay?" she asked, flipping through the air and landing on her feet next to her partner. He answered her by gesturing at her to duck; she did so and he punched the giant ant that was about to slam into her, knocking it back.

"Done?" he asked Kim. She nodded in reply. He grin and grabbed Kim, scooping her into his arms. "Let's get out here!" he shouted and he jumped over the ants in one single leap, landing in front of the hole that they came in from and he raced out of there with Kim in his arms, leaving the ants behind in their confusion.

When they were a good distance away from the hill and in a nice secluded part of the park did Ron put Kim down on the ground. "I can run pretty fast too, you know Ron," she said dryly, although there was a slight note of amusement in her voice.

"And let me waste the chance to hold you like that? KP, you wound me," he said with mock sadness. She laugh softly and took his hand in hers.

"C'mon hero. You're going out on a late date with me," she smiled as they walked away from the park.

"Abooyah," he smiled back, following in her lead.


	7. Chapter 7

That night, they had a fun time at the Mucho Grande Bueno Nacho outlet, especially since it was only the two of them alone at that time. No employees except for a temp manager; the actual one was on a ship cruise with his family, minus his estranged sister. The best part was that Ron could just spend the rest of the night there since his stuff were already packed in the car and his parents were okay with driving his stuff there without him.

"Two days without the parents, Kim. How sweet is that?" Ron grinned at his girlfriend.

"And what are you proposing that we do for two days?" Kim asked, quirking an eyebrow at him. "And don't say two days here at Bueno Nachos with Bricks of Fury 10: Space Bricks in between meals."

"Kim, I'm shocked. What makes you think that I was even going to suggest that?" he said, pretending to sound hurt.

"Because that's what we did the last time the 'rents were out of town," she said dryly. "Okay...this time I'm making the plans," she closed her eyes and thought about it for a while as Ron picked at his naco a little sulkily and Rufus scurried about the table, stuffing his face.

"Okay, first thing in the morning, we meet up for breakfast in a cafe and then we're checking out the Go City Museum for Art, grab some lunch at the Sam You Chinese restaurant in downtown and after that, we're going to the Go City Mall to get some new clothes," she said with a bright smile, opening her eyes and looking at Ron.

"Wow...that's kinda sounds..." he started to say.

"Like things that I want to do?" she said innocently. He nodded in reply.

"Yes, they are. You don't have any problem with that, do you? I mean, most of the things that we do are the things that you want to do so I thought it'd be a nice change of pace if we tried something else for once," she said sweetly.

He sighed and nodded. "It's not going to be terribly boring is it?" he asked.

"Oh, just give it a chance, Ron. For me? Or else I'm going to give Shego a call and hang out with her instead," she said, raising her cellphone up.

"Okay...for you...and not because I can't stand the idea of you and Shego being so chummy," he said defensively.

Smiling broadly, she glanced at her watch to check the time. "Oops...it's getting late. I'd better get back to the dorm before my roomie notices I'm gone. I'll drop you off at the same hotel?" she asked.

"Sure. Catch you tomorrow, Kim?"

She nodded and leaned forward to kiss his cheek.

PB

Kim woke up the next morning at around nine to the sound of typing. Darnia was at the computer again, and apparently she was still going on at the Antropy and QBFG case.

"Hey, you," Kim said as she got out of bed. "Still working on it?"

"Oh...hey!" Darnia turned around and gave her a grin. "We've still got a few more days before college actually starts and it's nice to get something to pass the time. Speaking of time, where did you go to last night? Was it another mission?" she asked.

"Oh yeah. Fought Antropy's minions and stopped them from recreating the QBFG. You woke up last night?"

"Nope. Came out on the news an hour ago. 'Entomological Eruption!" according to the headlines."

"They couldn't go any further than that?"

"Alliteration is a lot harder than it looks apparently."

"I guess it is...hey, Darnia...can I ask you a favor?"

"Sure, what is it?" she stopped working at her computer and turned to look at Kim.

"If the dean ever asks you about whether I'm doing my hero business...could you just tell him that no I'm not...just in case?" she asked.

"Er...sure...but why would I say that?" Darnia asked a little suspiciously. "I'd thought that your hero business is good for the whole world."

"Not according to the dean. He wants me to stop and smell the roses, stay in college where it's safe," she sighed a little.

"Now that is one sick and wrong notion...okay, I've got your back, Kim. Just go about saving the world like you always do."

Kim smiled a little. "Hey...my boyfriend just got to town. Do you want to go and hang out with us or something?"

"Or something. Thanks for the invite though," Darnia smiled back. "I'll be fine here doing this. This is really quite exciting, being able to help a hero with her job."

"Okay...if you say so..." Kim said uncertainly. Her room-mate was definitely shaping up to be like a female version of Wade. She grabbed her towel and toiletries and left her room.

On her way to the bath-room, she bumped into Dean Mancuso, who stopped to look at her for a long while suspiciously. "Did you see the news for this morning, Ms Possible?" he asked.

She shook her head. "There isn't a TV in my room and I just woke up, sir," she said innocently. "Why? Did something happen?"

He just stood there for a long while before he shook his head. "No...nothing happened, Ms Possible. Have a good day," he said in a dangerously pleasant tone that said, 'I have my eye on you.'

"I'm planning on it," she smiled sweetly at him and watched as he left the vicinity. And score another one for Team Possible. "Booyah," she said softly under her breath.

PB

Ron was already waiting for Kim in front of the hotel by the time she had finished freshening up and drove there in her car. "Morning, beautiful," he grinned as he got in the car and kissed her cheek.

She smiled back at him. "Slept well, cutie?" she asked.

"Got a little itchy last night actually," he said, scratching himself absently. "But when I got up to check out what was causing the itch, I didn't really find anything."

"That's weird," she commented with an arched eyebrow. "Any hives that would make me worry about you?"

"Nah, it's cool. Nothing can stop the Ron-man from spending today with you."

"Okay. Buckle up then. There's this nice little cafe that I saw a few days ago and I've been dying to trying it out with you," she said as she drove away from the hotel.

PB

Hours later, they were at the Go City Mall, where Kim was perusing some clothes in the local Club Banana and Ron was sitting on a chair nearby, looking rather bored. He did his best to stifle a yawn but failed miserably. Rufus popped out of his pocket occasionally, looking equally as bored.

"Ron, what do you think?" Kim asked suddenly, showing him a soft pink top and a baby blue top. "Which do you think looks better on me?"

The question caused him to sit up straight and he stared hard at the tops for a minute. "Go with the pink one," he said finally. She smiled a little. At least he knew how to act interested, she thought before she went back to her browsing.

Beep, beep be beep.

"Yes!" He hopped up to his feet and pumped his fist into the air. Kim turned to glare at Ron. "I mean er...bummer! That Wade sure has terrible timing..." he said quickly.

Keeping her glare on him, she raised the Kimmunicator to her lips. "What's the sitch, Wade?" she asked.

"Bad timing?" he asked as he appeared on the screen.

"No. Bad boyfriend."

"...right. Anyways, so your room-mate and I did a little more digging into Antropy and the QBFG and we..."

"Wait...how did you know I asked my room-mate?"

"I tracked her down and asked her directly. Thought it'd be a bit more efficient this way so that we didn't have to search through the same info twice. So the two of us did some digging and we managed to find an interesting bit of info regarding the QBFG."

"Interesting in the doomsday device sort of interesting, or am I wrong and is Antropy really trying to end world hunger and create peace and goodwill on Earth?" Kim asked as Ron moved closer to her.

"Only if Snowman Hank were to become the next villain in our rogues' gallery. So anyway, here's the lowdown on the QBFG: remember when I said that its primary purpose is to stop cosmic radiation from harming people when used in space?"

"Yeah. What's Antropy going to do with a cosmic radiation shield? Go into space and make an antopia?" Ron asked.

"If that were the case, I'd say go ahead and do so, nut-job but it's a lot worse than that," Wade said grimly. "Now the QBFG is designed to be used in space, where there's no atmosphere and no living beings around except for those inside the space shuttle. The problem comes when the device is used inside a planet's atmosphere where's there a higher density of molecules to be affected by the QBFG's shielding properties. Now the Earth itself is too large to be affected by the QBFG's effect, but living creatures aren't."

"Meaning?" Kim asked, as a feeling of dread washed over her.

"Meaning that if this device is used within Earth's atmosphere, we're looking at the annihilation of all life on the planet," Wade said, staring hard at Kim and Ron.

"Okay...time out over here," Ron made a T-shape with his hands. "Really? Wipe out all life on the planet? Who'd be dumb enough to do that? I mean wipe out all life would almost mean wiping yourself out."

"In normal circumstances, I'd say that's true but on a hunch, Darnia made a check to see if there were anything that could possibly help to negate the effects of the QBFG and there is something that can be used to shield a small group of people in case the QBFG was accidentally triggered in the research center."

"Has it been stolen already?" Kim asked quickly.

"Not yet. It's being developed in another lab, this one being in a secret Japanese research facility located on an uninhabited island called Udone-shima. And no, Antropy hasn't been spotted anywhere within a hundred miles of the island so if you go there first and warn the researchers, we might be able to stop him from stealing the device."

"Or we could get them to make a large scale anti-QBFG instead," Kim said, as something clicked in her mind.

"Didn't think of that one. Good call, Kim. I've already made arrangements for a flight to Japan and I'll send word to the researchers at the facility. You have five minutes to get back onto the main road," Wade said with a relieved smile.

"Right Ron. You're off boyfriend duty," she looked up at him. "It's time to head to Japan."


	8. Chapter 8

"Thanks for the flight, Captain McLeod," Kim said to the burly man who was piloting the hypersonic VTOL carrier jet that had picked them up from the streets of Go City a while ago.

"No problem, Kim. Especially after you saved me and my crew from that rogue self-aware drone," he said in a friendly manner.

"It was no big. Anyone could have figured out that the AI was just trying to play tag with all the other jets in the air," she said modestly.

He laughed and shook his head in reply. "Alright, Kim. We're about to reach your destination. Do you want us to land and drop you and your sidekick off?" he asked.

"Partner and boyfriend, not sidekick," she corrected. "No, it's fine. We'll just make a standard jump. It's no big," she said with a smile and went to the back of the plane, where Ron was adjusting his parachute.

"Ready, Ron?" she asked, picking up a parachute which she had checked before talking to McLeod.

"As I'll ever be," he said, slipping on the parachute and a helmet. Then once they were ready, the plane door opened and a voice said through the loud-speaker, "Okay, kids. This is where you jump off."

Quickly the two of them made a dash out the door and began free-falling through the air. Far down below them, they could see an island with a small plume of smoke drifting out of a mountain in the center: Udone-shima. Kim took a quick look at Ron, gesturing at him to open his parachute first. He did so without a hitch and once she was certain that he was fine, she deployed hers and aimed her descent for the beach.

Their landing went without a hitch and they quickly removed their helmets and parachutes before taking a quick breather. "Okay...that went perfectly fine," Kim said, glancing around at the island. As Wade had mentioned, the island was an uninhabited one, though there were a few extremely old and dilapidated buildings scattered about the beach. On this fine early morning, this place didn't look like a secret site for a science facility but a piece of the past captured like a photograph and the two of them were intruding on it.

"C'mon, Ron. We'd better make a..." her words stopped in her throat and she glanced around quickly as she felt a prickle run down her spine. Someone was watching them. Ron had gotten the same idea as well; his eyes darting around wildly.

Then, as they were looking around, a masked feminine figure stepped out of one of the buildings and bowed to them. "Stoppable-san, Possible-san. It is good to meet the two of you again," she said and pulled out her mask, causing the two of them to break out in a smile.

"Yori!" Ron gave her a friendly wave. "How's my favorite ninja doing?" he asked cheerfully.

"I am doing well, Stoppable-san," she gave him a bright smile before her face took on a serious look. "I come from Yamanouchi bearing a warning from Sensei. He had sensed that you were coming here and sent me here with this message: Beware of the army that seeks to devour you," she said, sounding a little frightened and worried.

"Somebody wants to eat Ron?" Kim asked, stepping in front of her boyfriend. "That is just sick and wrong on so many levels!"

"I do not know. Perhaps Sensei was only speaking metaphorically, that there is only something out that wishes grave harm upon Stoppable-san," Yori chewed her lower lip as she looked at the two.

"Well...no need to worry then. The Ron-man's mad monkey mojo will definitely help me against whatever army that's going to try and devour me," he said confidently and gave Yori a bright smile. "It's good to see you again, Yori but there's a saving the world business that me and Kim will have to attend and..."

"And I wish to accompany the two of you on it, at least while we are in Udone-shima," Yori said firmly.

"Oh..." he said helplessly and looked at Kim, who shrugged in return. Yori was a trained ninja and excellent in a fight. It didn't hurt if she wanted to help them.

"Alright, Yori. Welcome aboard," Kim said and extended her hand to the other girl, who simply bowed.

"Thank you for this honor and opportunity to hone my skills alongside Team Possible," she said.

"The honor is all ours," Kim bowed back to her. Still, the other girl's earlier words left a sense of foreboding in her heart. Was Ron really in danger?

PB

After giving Yori a quick briefing as to what their objective was here on Udone-shima and what led them to travel to Udone-shima in the first place, Kim and Ron followed her as she led them on the fastest route to the research facility.

"How did you know where it is?" Kim asked her curiously as they made their way there, giving her a questioning glance.

"I am ninja. It is my business to know where all the secret places of the world are located," Yori stopped to take a bow to Kim. Somehow, Kim got the sense that Yori was actually quite proud of this accomplishment, despite her otherwise humble tone might indicate.

"That's my Yori...er I mean...good work Yori. You do Sensei proud," Ron said quickly after a quick glare from Kim cut off his first sentence.

Yori smiled and blushed faintly from Ron's words. "Domo," she said quietly and continued to lead them towards the facility.

Within the hour, they were at an abandoned bunker, close to the foot of the volcano that dominated the island's heart. Yori gestured towards the bunker. "The entrance of the facility is located within this bunker," she announced.

"Thanks Yori. Couldn't have found it without you," Kim said graciously and stepped forward to the door, pushing it open. The door slid open effortlessly without a squeak; someone had been maintaining the hinges well. Light from the morning sun flooded in, revealing a steel trapdoor in the center of the bunker.

"Talk to me, Wade," Kim lifted her watch up to her lips.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Did you inform the researchers that we're coming?" she asked.

"Yup. Once you get down into the facility, there should be a welcoming party for you."

"Thanks, Wade. Hopefully this will go without a hitch," she said as the three of them knelt down to pull the trapdoor up. Instantly, as soon as the trapdoor was pulled up, an army of ants began crawling out from the hatch, causing Ron to shriek in fright.

"Bugs!" he shouted and was about to start panicking when Kim grabbed his hand. "Ron...focus here," she said softly to him. He took several deep breaths to try and calm down and soon he was breathing a little better. Yori was inspecting the darkness that the ants had emerged from with some distaste on her face.

"I do not like this. If this Antropy person controls ants like you mentioned, this is a bad omen," she said.

"Agreed. But we still have to go down there," Kim said firmly, taking a flare from her pouch and dropped it down the hatch. It fell for about ten seconds before they heard a loud clank and they could see ants scattering from the light that the flare was giving out before the light was extinguished by other ants that swarmed over the flare.

"Okay...that is so not a good sign at all," Ron complained as Kim and Yori began to climb down the hatch via the ladder that was attached to it. A second later, he too started climbing down the ladder, complaining under his breath.

Ants scurried away from Kim's feet when she reached the bottom of the floor, revealing the flare that she had dropped earlier. She picked it up and flicked any straggling ants from it as Yori climbed down after her, followed by Ron. "Are you okay, Ron?" she called out to him.

"No. I don't want to be here...but I don't have a choice do I? It's my honor to be here, isn't it?" he said, glancing at Yori, who did her best to hide a smile.

"Stoppable-san, your American style attempts at humor is quite welcome in this troubled place," she said demurely, allowing Ron to preen a little as the fear slowly left his face. Kim noticed this and glanced back at Yori, who simply smiled back at her. Japanese style encouragement, she thought to herself.

She was about to take a step forward when she caught sight of something glistening in the light of the flare. Curious, she shone the flare in the direction of the glisten. A pool of a slick crimson fluid greeted her as a smell of iron slowly wafted up to her nose. Shocked, she turned away from the pool, her face ashen.

"Kim, what's wrong?" Ron asked, noticing her distressed look. She simply shook her head and gave him a quick reassuring smile. Yori glanced in the direction that Kim had looked at earlier and cleared her throat softly.

"I would suggest haste in this matter. Perhaps we should press on ahead. One of us should go ahead to scout the facility," she said and bowed to Ron, who sighed.

"Yeah, I get the honor schtick right now. Rufus, stick to me buddy," he grumbled as he slipped on his night vision goggles and went ahead into the darkness.

Once he had gone a certain distance, Yori turned to Kim. "Possible-san, what did you see?" she asked softly. Wordlessly, Kim shone the flare at what she had seen earlier. Yori blanched slightly and looked Kim again. "In your opinion, is this Antropy capable of such an act?"

"He's planning to make a really big omelet, what's a few eggs to him?" Kim said grimly. "C'mon. We'd better hurry up. Maybe we can find some survivors and the plans for the anti-QBFG."

PB

Instead of waiting for Ron to return, the girls decide to look for him instead. Kim slipped on her night vision goggles and offered a spare to Yori, who declined. "The ancient art of ninjutsu has many ways to deal with darkness," she said, as she took a small bundle of leaves from a pouch and chewed it. Under the influence of the goggles, Kim could see Yori's eyes visibly dilate. The latter gave her a quick nod and the two of them went after Ron.

After five minutes of walking, they found him, kneeling in front of a torn off door and inspecting it. He noticed them and shook his head. "Nothing inside there except for totaled furniture," he said softly.

"Great...any idea where we're supposed to go to?" Kim asked.

"Well..." he pointed behind the two ladies. "There's a directory of this place, I think but I can't read Japanese. Yori...it would be your honor to translate it for it," he clasped his fist and bowed to her.

"Of course," she replied serenely and bowed to him in return before she took a look at the directory.

"Wait...can she see in the dark?" Ron asked Kim in confusion, as Yori read through the directory, her head slowly following the details on it. Kim gave him a quick nod. "Ninja vision trick," she said.

"Ah...right...how come they didn't teach me that when I was in Yamanouchi?" he asked.

"Because ingesting the wrong plants would have given you horrible cramps not dissimilar to the ones that Kim and I experience every month," Yori said sweetly, heading back to them. "The directory mentions a series of laboratories located one level below us," she continued, as Ron tried to understand what she said. "If there is a place in this forsaken facility where we might find what we are looking for, it would be there."

"And what about survivors?" Kim asked. "Did you find any place on the directory where they might possibly hide?" she asked. Yori turned back to look at the directory and pointed at two separate spots.

"The kitchen and the armory," she said firmly. "Two places in a facility like this that would have a sealed room behind a thick steel door."

"Hold up..." Ron held up his hand and looked at Kim. "We're not going to split up in here, Kim. That would be a terrible idea," he said.

"Horror movie bad idea number one?"

"Number two actually," he said with a sage nod.

"Well, we'll have to split up. One of us will go to one of those locations each and we'll meet back here in 15 minutes," Kim said, rolling her eyes.

Ron shook his head. "Just you watch KP...one of us isn't going to be leaving this place," he said, affecting a mock look of doom. "Just you watch...watch...watch..."

Kim smacked him on his head. "Enough echoing already," she snapped.

He shrugged. "Okay, point the way, Kim. We'll get this all done in ten," he grinned and winked at her.


	9. Chapter 9

It was settled: Yori would be the one to go to the lab while Ron would go to the armory and Kim would search the kitchen. "Japanese researchers will not write their work in English," she reasoned. There was no fault with that logic, Kim had to admit; neither Ron nor herself could read an iota of Japanese.

"Okay, Team Possible...we've got a lot of ground to cover so let's make this quick and get as many survivors and the plans out of here safely. If we see giant bugs, we squash them hard, okay?" Kim said to the other two. They grinned and nodded back at her.

"Good luck and stay safe," she said, nodding at Yori before she leaned in and gave Ron a peck on his cheek. "That goes double for you, mister," she said sternly. Ron grinned and kissed her back. "Don't worry, KP. I've got the mad monkey powers, you've got the giant bug phobia. You stay safe yourself," he said to her.

"Ahem." The two of them looked at Yori, who was looking a bit embarrassed. "While the American style affection is very pleasant to observe, we do have a mission to carry out," she said politely.

"Sorry," Kim said apologetically. "Wait...Yori..." she reached into her backpack and pulled out a blue PDA. "The old Kimmunicator," she explained. "Otherwise we can't contact you."

"Domo, Possible-san. We will stay in touch." As soon as she had said that, Yori had already vanished into the shadows, causing Kim and Ron to blink rapidly in shock. "We have night vision goggles and that girl still managed to disappear," Kim spluttered in disbelief. "How come you didn't learn that trick in ninja school Ron?"

PB

Kim raced on through the darkness, leaping over fallen furniture and smashed rubble as she made her way to the kitchen. Every now and then, she would stop for a brief moment to listen and scan her surroundings for any signs of bugs but so far she was lucky; there were none around her, as far as she could tell.

She glanced down at her Kimmunicator. It had taken her five minutes to get this far. According to her estimates, she still needed another two more minutes to reach the kitchen. Hopefully Yori was right on this matter and that there is a sealed room inside there. She took a deep breath and resumed running again.

Less than two minutes later, she arrived at a dining area, with furniture arranged in perfect alignment to the walls and to each other, with bowls of food still on top of the tables. Breakfast had been served only a few hours ago, it seemed and they were already crawling with ants, causing made a face as she walked past the tables and chairs.

She could see the entrance to the kitchen thanks to her goggles, two doors with large circular glass built in them. She pushed the doors open and they swung without the slightest of noise. Inside was in fact, the kitchen as she had predicted but it was in a huge mess at the moment, pots, pans and shattered crockery lay on the otherwise spotless floor; she saw nothing else that would indicated a struggle took place here.

There was some light in here as well too and it came from sparks that erupted from a wrecked console on the wall next to a large steel door. Her heart started to beat rapidly; there it was, the facility's freezer. Maybe some of the researchers had managed to get there in time, she thought as she quickly went to the door and tried to open it. The handle was stuck in place, though after rattling it some more, she thought she heard some noise coming from inside the freezer.

"Hold on!" she shouted. "I'm here to help you!" Kim went over to the console and looked at it intently. Like all the other consoles she had come across so far these past few days, it was crawling with ants. Grimacing, she took out another capsule from her pouch and twisted it open before she poured its contents out on the console. It dripped out and landed on the ants before turning into smoke. As expected, the ants went insane and quickly disperse, though it still left her with a ruined console to deal with.

She started to fiddle about with the wires and the circuit boards, seeing what she can do in order to get it working and after a few false starts, the console flickered to life. "Yes!" she said and pressed a green button. There was a loud hiss, followed by a whoosh as she heard the door unlock itself and then there were screams of terror from within the freezer.

"Whoa!" she rushed to the door. Luckily there was light inside the freezer and she stepped in, allowing the ten people inside to get a good look at her. "It's okay...I'm one of the good guys," she said, pulling off the night vision goggles.

One of the people inside, a middle-aged man looked hard at her. "Kim Possible?" he asked finally.

"That's me. Who are you and what happened here?" she asked cautiously.

He took a deep breath to calm himself down and to stop his teeth and knees from shaking. "My name is Doctor Hasegawa, one of the researchers here. I cannot tell you what it is that I was working on but you know of its sister project, the Quantum Blockade Field Generator, yes?"

She nodded in reply. "And that there's a super-villain who's out there and trying to get his hands on both research it seems," she said grimly.

Hasegawa grimaced in response to her words. "Believe me, Ms Possible. My team and I have noticed. Although to be honest, we have not seen this super-villain yet. One minute, we were having our breakfast, the next we were suddenly attacked by all manner of ants, small and giant," he said.

She quirked an eyebrow. Antropy wasn't here again? She pushed that thought away and she looked at all of the people inside the freezer. "This are all the people here?" she asked.

"No. Many of us...did not make it..." he closed his eyes. "Their screams..."

Kim chewed on her lower lip. "I...I'm sorry...but we'll need to get out of here. The rest of my team should be on their way out already," she said and raised her Kimmunicator to her lips. "Yori? Ron? Do you read me? I found some survivors here in the kitchen. Did you guys have some good luck too?" she asked.

Yori's voice crackled first. "Yes, Possible-san. I have managed to retrieve some of the data."

"Some?"

"The computers were all destroyed but luckily, there are some hard-copies of the data, though much of the data is still lost."

Hasegawa spoke up, "Some of the data will still be useful. I can help you complete the rest of it."

"Good. Ron, how's things on your end?" she asked.

"Found some survivors but things are starting to look bad here," Kim could barely make out the sound of chitterings and a cold shiver ran down her spine.

"You're going to need help Ron. I'll..."

"...be helping the survivors you found out of here. And Yori will be coming to meet you with the data. Rufus will be guiding the survivors here over to you guys," Ron's voice was deadly serious and the shiver in Kim's body intensified.

"Ron, this is no time for you to be playing hero. You get back over here too!" she shouted at him.

"KP, relax. I've got the mad monkey mojo. I'll just play with them for a bit and the survivors I've found will have a good chance of making it out," he said calmly. "Don't worry. I'll come back for you. I promise."

"Well you better. I don't want any kind of suicidal heroes on my team," she tried to say as calmly as she can.

"Stoppable-san, I shall come over to you right now..." Yori started to say.

"No, Yori. It's your honor to get the data out in one piece otherwise we can't beat the villain," Ron said, cutting her off before she could say anything

"That's enough! Everyone, get back to the rendezvous point then!" Kim shouted in frustration before looking at the survivors in front of her. "That means you guys too! Go!" she started to race out of the kitchen with the survivors in tow.

PB

Getting to the rendezvous point was a lot harder than expected, especially with ten survivors in tow and a inexplicable paranoia of giant creatures suddenly appearing out of the dark. It ended up taking them eight minutes to return back, instead of the expected five and Kim's mind began to wander towards darker places, hoping that Ron was still alright.

Yori was already there, pacing around in worry. When she heard footsteps, she looked up to see who it was and Kim could see her face fall slightly. She knew the feeling as well, but she gave Yori a brave smile. "People, you know where the exit is!" she said loudly. "Professor Hasegawa, do you think you can make it there while we go back and get the rest of your people out?"

He looked at his people and then back at Kim. "Of course, Ms Possible. We can handle ourselves. You should go and help the other survivors," he said.

"Hasegawa hakasei," Yori called out as she stepped up to the researcher and then proceeded to say a few things to him in Japanese before she handed a rolled up blueprint to him. He nodded and bowed to her, taking the blueprint from her. She bowed back and walked over to Kim, her face grim with determination.

"Ikkuzo," she said and darted off into the darkness. Kim followed her, equally as determined. The two made like lightning, zipping through the darkness as they made their way for the armory for a short while until they heard the sounds of running footsteps. Through the green tint of her goggles, Kim could see a small group of people, each armed with pistols and flashlights, being led by Rufus who was racing ahead of them.

She pulled off the goggles and shouted, "Rufus!" The naked mole rat chittered and ran up to Kim, scurrying up her leg. "Help!" he squeaked, tugging on her cheek painfully.

"I know Rufus. I'm going to save Ron now," she said reassuringly. "Now, make sure you guide these folk back to the exit, okay? We'll be back with Ron later."

"Okay," Rufus said sadly and ran down to the ground while Yori spoke to the other survivors. Reluctantly it seemed, they agreed to continue following Rufus and the two girls watched them disappear into the darkness before Kim slipped the goggles back on and resumed speeding towards the armory with Yori.

Before long, they could hear the sounds of fighting and Ron's funny martial arts sound and Kim felt a great burden lifted from her shoulders. He was still fighting, he's okay! she thought. The same thought seemed to have crossed Yori's mind as well; the tension in her face and step eased significantly. They picked up their pace a little, just in case.

The sight that they were greeted with was a triumphant one: Ron was holding his own against a horde of giant ants, his entire body radiating a fierce light (which again didn't send Kim's goggles into overload. Was it the mystical nature of his powers? Kim wondered) and a large pile of ants lay at his feet. He was being forced back though but every step backwards was two ants downed by him.

Time to give him a hand, Kim smiled and aimed her Kimmunicator at the ants, unleashing a focused sonic pulse at them. The shock-wave tore a huge line through the ants and knocked most of them onto their feet, stunned by the force of the sonic pulse.

"Kim!" he shouted in relief, relaxing his guard for a short moment. "What took you so long?"

"Ron-san!" Yori called out in terror, her eyes darting to his feet. "Watch out!"

"Huh?" he said and stared at his feet, just as a giant ant erupted from the ground below and its mandibles clasped painfully on his legs. He howled in pain and punched the ant twice in its head buts its mandibles refused to relax their grip and it pulled him down into the hole.

"No!" Kim cried out in despair and was about to charge to his rescue when the other giant ants swarmed over Ron, pushing him down into the hole with the combined weight of their bodies. She cried out in frustration and activated the wide area hyper sonic emission. The ants began to thrash about in a frenzy and swarmed away from her boyfriend, who was barely holding on to the edge of the hole. Both Yori and Kim lunged forward as one and each grabbed one of his hand, trying to pull him out before the ants could pull him down. Everyone started to pulling as hard as they can, causing Ron to cry out in pain.

After a moment of pulling, Yori glanced down into the hole and gasped loudly, releasing her hold on Ron's hand and he began to fall further into the hole. "Yori!" Kim screamed at her. "What are you doing?"

"Possible-san...we have to let go..." Yori said, tears streaming down her face. "We are tearing Ron-san apart if we carry on like this..."

"No...we just need to pull harder. We'll make them give up and Ron will be with us again, safe and sound...and..."

"Forgive me," Yori whispered.

Kim felt a sharp blow on her head and her hand loosened, just enough for Ron's hand to slip away from hers and below she blacked out, she saw his hand vanish into the hole and heard Yori wept uncontrollably next to her.

"Ron..." Kim whispered before darkness overwhelmed her.


	10. Chapter 10

Kim woke up with a start. Her night vision goggles was still functioning and she could see Yori sitting against the wall, sobbing quietly to herself while Rufus is petting her hand consolingly, despite crying himself. "Ron..." she called out softly. "Ron?"

Yori stopped and looked up at her, her eyes red from the crying and she shook her head.

"You..." Kim growled as the memory of what Yori did flooded her mind and she sprung off, grabbing the folds of Yori's ninja tunic and roughly pulled her up. "Why?"

"I...I saw that the ant would not let go of Stoppable-san...that if one side does not yield, he would have surely been doomed from our pulling..."

"And now he's with Antropy and his ants and that doesn't doom him?" Kim shouted angrily at her and she slammed her fist in the wall, leaving a small crater behind where she had punched the wall.

"You do not think that I know that?" Yori raised her voice, almost shouting back at Kim. "The decision to release Stoppable-san was a painful one and worse, I made Sensei's warning come true! By the choice that I have made, I have condemned Stoppable-san to the army that would devour him. But if I had to choose between certain death and the faintest of chance to save, I will jump into the hole this instant and retrieve him so that you may hold him once more in your arms again."

The two of them glared at each for a long moment before Kim' shoulders slumped and she let go of Yori's tunic. "You're...you're right Yori. I think I'd have done the same thing too if I were in your sitch." She took a deep breath. "Now...we just have to go and rescue him back from those ants," she said, wiping her face with her hand.

"We?" Yori asked, sounding a little confused. "You wish me to help you rescue Stoppable-san?"

"...yeah...yeah I want you to help me rescue my boyfriend. You're one of the best fighters that I know personally and you'll go the extra mile to get Ron back for two reasons," Kim forced a smile onto her lips, though there was not a single hint of mirth nor warmth in it. There was a lot of anger and hate in her; she wanted to beat Yori up into a bloody mess for giving up on saving Ron...

Finally after a moment, Yori nodded. "I am bound to you and Stoppable-san. Until I have atoned for my deed, my life is yours, to toss away into the winds if that is your desire," she said calmly.

Kim stared at her for another moment more before she stepped back and lifted her watch. "Wade, are you getting a signal from Ron's chip?" she asked.

The screen flickered to life. "Sorry, Kim. I'm not getting anything from the chip. Either the ants took him too far down or something is actively jamming the chip. I can't get a trace on him," he started.

"Not good enough, Wade," she snapped at him. "I need something more than that and you're going to give it to me now."

Wade stared at her for a good long while. "I'll disregard that as you being stressed over Ron being missing," he said a little icily, causing Kim to regret her words. "I've already got Darnia on helping locate Antropy's actual base of operations but it'll take a while. You and Yori should go and get some rest and food first. I've already arranged transport to bring the two of you to Go City since that's the most likely place for Antropy's lair to be located in."

"Thanks and..." the screen blinked out. "...sorry, Wade," she said softly. Then she knelt down. "C'mon Rufus. We'll find Ron before you know it," she said gently to him and he ran over into her hands where she placed him inside her pocket before she started to walk away.

She turned back to look at Yori when she noticed that she wasn't at her side and she saw Yori still looking down into the hole, a forlorn look of regret on her face and a single, final tear rolled down her face before she looked up at Kim, her face regaining the look of steely determination that she had earlier, as she started to walk after her.

PB

The flight back to the Go City was a relatively quiet one; neither Kim nor Yori would talk to each other during the entire trip as the memory of what had just happened what was still fresh in their minds. Rufus scurried between the two, consoling them and he received a smile and a pet from each girl.

During the trip back, Kim had decided to contact Ron's parents but she had decided not to tell them exactly what was actually happening; it hurt her too much to actually voice out what had happened and it felt like admitting defeat: that she had given up on Ron before attempting to rescue him. So she told them that he was in a deep cover mission and that they shouldn't contact him for a while.

They were concerned of course and immediately started asking her some very hard questions, almost as if they could tell she was lying. She just simply evaded answering them until they finally gave up and told her to wish him well. She let out a sigh of relief when the conversation was over: she hated all that lying but when all this is done, Ron will be back safe and sound. That was a promise that she intended to keep.

Eventually, the pilot of the helicopter they were flying on called out to them, "Okay, ladies...ETA is about two minutes. Any place that you want me to drop you off at?"

"Anywhere is fine," Kim responded. "Wait...the Go City Park," she said after a moment's thought. This caused Yori's head to perk up and she looked at Kim in a quizzical manner.

"Antropy had a lair there, or at least we found some of his ants working over there," she explained, walking over to the other girl. "Maybe we can find something there that might give us a clue as to where they took Ron."

Yori nodded at this and looked down at her feet again. Something inside Kim wanted to reach out to the other girl and tell her that everything will turn out to be alright and they will find Ron soon. She didn't and walked away instead. Later, she thought. After we find Ron and he's safe.

"Trouble with your partner over there, lil' lady?" the pilot asked when Kim had returned to the cockpit. He had already set the helicopter on a flight path towards the park.

"She's not my partner...but yeah, there's some trouble," Kim admitted.

"Best you'd clear it out before your next job. These things has a very nasty habit of festering and blowing up at the wrong time," he said. "Anyways, we're here," he said, landing the helicopter in a clearing. She nodded slowly and whistled to Rufus, who scrambled to know and climbed into her pocket, snuggling deep inside it.

The two girls got out of the helicopter with little fuss and they watched as it took off and flew off into the distance. It was evening now and there were a few twilight joggers staring at the helicopter as it left. Kim turned and started walking towards the hill where she and Ron had infiltrated two nights ago, Yori following her quietly.

The entrance was still where it was earlier, only this time there was a police line there with a lone policeman standing guard. Thinking quickly, Kim gestured at Yori to stay hidden before she walked up to him. If she played this right, they might get a bit more than they had hoped for. "Officer, do you know who I am?" she asked him.

"Er...yeah...you're Kim Possible. What are you doing here...and this is a restricted area. No one's allowed in here with authorization," he said quizzically.

"Just in the neighborhood. Thought I'd drop by and see what's going on," she said smoothly, gesturing at Yori to move in while the policeman was distracted.

"You heard what happened here? Man, it was insane...giant ants suddenly popped out of the ground and began swarming the whole park. Luckily we were prepared for a problem like this," he said, shaking his head in disbelief, not noticing that Yori had already slipped past him and was running down the passageway within the hill. "Then we found this hill, and there was...well, there was a lot of classified stuff inside there," he said surreptitiously.

"Really now?" Kim asked, pretending to be interested in his words. "Say...I've been doing some of my own digging and I saw that there was a Go City criminal called Antropy. I figured, a guy with ant in his name must have something to do with this sitch," she said.

"Antropy? I don't think so. He was a small-timer, figuratively and sort of literally in this case. He likes to steal small stuffs like diamonds and nanotechnology with his regular size ants. Usually it's Mego who has to handle him since those ants like to take their goods down the really small places where nobody can go."

"Really? Mego had an arch-nemesis?"

"Yeah, can you believe it? It's like the universe decided that there should be some sort of match between superheroes and super-villains so that there's always a balance," he laughed and shook his head. "So is there anything else that I can do for you?" he asked. "I mean I'm okay with answering questions since you're a world famous hero and all but I just can't let you in. Captain's orders."

"It's okay, officer. I wouldn't want you to get into trouble with your superiors," she said sweetly. "One last question before I leave: do you know this Antropy guy might be at right now?"

"Do I? We just arrested him a few hours ago. He's at the GCPD 48th precinct station right now."

PB

Ten minutes later, Kim was waiting at the clearing where they had landed in earlier when Yori walked out of the shadows and went up to Kim. "Possible-san," she said softly.

"Find anything?" she asked briskly, tilting her head to glance at her.

"Aside from the signs of your battle with the ants and the police's attempts to find out what's happening? Yes," she said and held up her hand, opening her fist to reveal a piece of broken quartz.

"What's so special about this?" Kim asked, taking it from Yori's hand and inspected it idly. Then she saw it: a yellow metal was laced into the quartz. She hadn't seen that before since the green tint of her night vision goggles had removed all notion of color when she used them earlier.

"This is gold quartz," Yori said informatively. "It is a very rare combination of the two materials and if I am not mistaken, most commonly mined in Australia."

"So...what's a piece of rock from Australia doing here in Go City?" Kim asked, staring hard at the stone in hand. Another piece of the puzzle but it didn't make a single lick of sense. She shook her head and aimed her Kimmunicator at the stone. "Wade, I'm going to need an analysis of this piece of quartz ASAP," she said.

"You'll get it within a few hours, Kim," Wade responded almost immediately before the screen flickered out again. Guess he's still mad at me, Kim thought and then looked at Yori. "Good job, Yori," she said, trying to give her a smile but it came out rather weakly. The other girl noticed it though and bowed to Kim.

"What about you Possible-san? Did you find out anything from the police officer whom you interrogated?" she asked Kim.

"Antropy's been arrested and we're going to pay him a visit right now,"

"Ah," Yori said softly and a thin smile broke on her face, causing a shiver to run down Kim's spine. Antropy was in for a rough night, to say the least.


	11. Chapter 11

"Look officer...I'm telling you...I'm innocent. I've even got an alibi for it. Try asking Hank from the Late Nights bar. I was there with him until closing time at 3..." Kim heard someone say through her Kimmunicator outside the 48th precinct building. She and Yori had decided on a less obvious approach for handling Antropy's presence there: break in, extract Antropy out and 'interrogate' him before returning him back to his cell.

Normally Kim would be averse to such a method, but in this case, both she and Yori agreed that they had frustrations that needed venting. At the moment, Yori had already broken in and the two had synchronized their Kimmunicators so that Kim could listen to Yori was listening to.

"Kim," Wade's voice chimed in, cutting off the conversation she was listening to.

"What?" she asked, looking at her watch in annoyance.

"Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, just because he took Ron doesn't mean that you..."

"I'm sure and Yori's backing me up on this too. You just make sure that the security cameras doesn't capture us when we're making our move. The two of us will handle the rest."

"Fine," he said sourly and his image disappeared and Kim turned her attention back to the precinct building. An earlier study of the building's blueprints which Wade had uploaded to her earlier indicated that the prisoners' holding cells were in the basement and Yori volunteered to break in first to scope out the place. Better Yori than herself, Kim thought. That girl was insanely good at breaking and entering; probably because of the whole ninja thing.

Rufus climbed out of her pocket and let out a soft sigh, looking up at Kim with sad eyes. "Don't worry, little guy. We're going to have a few harsh words with Mr Antropy and we'll find out where his ants might have taken Ron okay?" she said with a reassuring smile.

Rufus chittered back, although it sounded to Kim like he was more worried about her than Ron before he crawled back into her pocket and curled himself into a ball, falling asleep. Must have been her imagination, she thought and turned her focus back to the 48th precinct.

Moments later, Yori's voice sounded from the Kimmunicator: "Posssible-san, I have located the target." A red beep appeared on Kim's watch, indicating where Yori had found Antropy. "How long before you will have gotten in position?"

"Two minutes. Wade, you heard that?" she asked and stealthily made her way to the ground, following the blue beep on her Kimmunicator that indicated herself to where the red beep was.

"Loud and clear, Kim. Everything will be cut once you're in position."

"Please and thank you," she said and continue to make her way to her position. She arrived there soon enough, a back alley that was secluded from public view and a level above where Antropy was being kept at. "Blue Fox is in position," she whispered.

"Red Ferret will strike now," Yori announced softly. Two seconds later, Kim could hear a loud voice say, "Hey, who are you and what are you doing here?" Checking her Kimmunicator, she could see that Yori was a few yards away from her. She took quick aim with her watch and fired a sonic pulse at the ground, blowing a hole in the wall.

"Blue Fox, we will need a bigger hole," Yori suddenly said; Kim could hear the exertion in her voice, she sounded like she was having some trouble getting Antropy to cooperate.

"Bigger hole? What do you mean?"

"You did not mention that the target is very thickset."

Kim's thoughts began to race. What was that suppose to mean? Antropy was an average sized man when she first met him. She pushed that thought out of her mind and fired another sonic pulse at the ground, widening the hole considerably.

"Domo." Kim could see someone quite large being pushed out of the hole. She grabbed a hole of the person and hauled him out, Yori following him a second later, alarms starting to sound as she climbed out.

Now that the person was out, Kim took a good look at him. She certainly didn't remember Antropy's girth being this...wide and so sloppy and yet there was something vaguely familiar about this middle-aged man in front of her but she can't place where she had seen him before. "Antropy?" she asked.

"Yes," he said and stood up, as tall as he was wide, that is to say he was on the short and chunky side. "Who are you suppose to be?"

"I'm Antropy that's who are I. Now I'll just thank you for trying to free me from my cell but I need to get back in there, otherwise the police will think that I have something to do with this," he said nervously. Yori sighed and looked at Kim, looking mildly annoyed.

"He is not the one we are seeking? Perhaps you fought an interloper?" she asked Kim.

"Looks like it..." Kim said angrily and walked up to this Antropy. "You want to go back to jail? Fine, but I want some questions answered first or I make you answer them," she hissed at him.

He gulped and took a step back, afraid to look at her. "Anything! Just don't hurt me!" he squealed. The alarm continued to wail in the background and they could hear footsteps racing towards them.

"Where's your ant controlling device?" she asked quickly.

"I don't know! It was stolen from me a few months ago!" he cried out. Kim glanced at Yori, who nodded back. At least some pieces of the puzzle was falling in place.

"Last question: Any idea who might have stolen it?" Kim asked, cracking her knuckles.

He shook his head. "I...I'm not sure. I left it in my locker at home and I've been checking it every month to make sure that it wasn't stolen until it was..." he said helplessly.

"Fine. Get back in your cell," Kim said and aimed upwards, firing her grappling hook into the roof above her. She grabbed Yori and pulled her close before activating the reel function of her Kimmunicator and the two of them shot into the air, fleeing the scene before the police arrived there.

PB

"Okay...unexpected twist, Wade," Kim said about thirty minutes later on top of a random building in downtown Go City. It was quiet all around, save for the distant sound of honking. She was sitting on the edge of the roof and Yori was sitting next to her, looking somewhat distressed herself. Rufus was out of her pocket, shaking his head at them as though as he was disappointed with what they did.

"Yes. We did not expect that there would be another Antropy running around committing these deeds," she said, shaking her head violently. "But it was just so perfectly timed that this Antropy was in jailed. Perhaps we were too hasty in our efforts to rescue Ron-san."

Kim stayed silent for a while before she turned on her Kimmunicator. "Wade, do you have something about Original Antropy for us?" she asked.

"No, but Darnia does," he said and the screen flickered, switching to Darnia's face back in her room. "Oh...oh wow...I'm talking to Kim on her Kimmunicator! This is so awesome!" she squealed in delight. Yori arched an eyebrow and looked at Kim, who gave her a sheepish smile.

"Talk to me, Darnia. Wade said you got some info on our man here," she said quickly.

"Oh right...yeah. Okay...I got into checking out who this guy is while Wade was running scans on the quartz gold sample that you forwarded to him virtually and got this lowdown. His real identity is Antiago Mahlman, went to North Go City High back in the 70's and used to be quite the ant nerd even back then. Won a few science fair prizes thanks to his research on ants and what they could do and all that other boring stuff. Why someone would be so into ants I can't really say..."

"Darnia, focus!"

"Oh right, sorry...er...where was I?"

"Darnia, did you find anything useful about Antropy?"

"Hmmm? Oh yeah...I found out where's he living, in case you know, you want to break in there again like how you did at the 48th precinct," she said lightly.

Kim looked at Yori. "Well...what do you think?" she asked.

The other girl closed her eyes and thought about it for a moment. "It would not hurt for us to at least pay this Antropy's house a visit," she said finally. "He said his device was stolen from his house? The thief may have left a clue behind as to his identity and this Antropy may not have found it."

"Alright...breaking and entering phase 2," Kim said with a sigh. "At least this time, we're breaking into a villain's house," she said, as if trying to console herself. Rufus shook his head before he hopped onto her lap and climbed into her pocket again.

"Cool. I'll send you the address right now. And Kim, good luck on finding your boyfriend. And...same to you, girl whose name was never mentioned to me but looks really cool in that ninja get up. Are you a real ninja by the by?" Darnia asked Yori.

PB

Another thirty minutes passed by as Yori and Kim quickly traveled to Mahlman's house. It was a quiet unassuming place in the middle of the Go City suburbs, surrounded by lots of trees and it even had a garden gnome in the middle of the lawn. It was hard to imagine this house as being the home of a villain.

"This is most unexpectedly pleasant, Possible-san," Yori whispered to Kim as they stayed hidden in one of the trees surrounding Mahlman's home.

"Yeah. Like the kind of place a person might want to have a family in," she agreed. She took a quick glance around and pointed at a round window near the roof. "That looks like it might be an attic window. Check that out first?" she said.

"Very well, Possible-san," Yori replied and she silently dropped down, darting over to the other side like a shadow. Kim simply just pointed her Kimmunicator and launched her grappling hook at the window, swinging over to the other side, long before Yori arrived there.

"Perhaps I will have to petition Sensei to get me one of those," Yori mused aloud as she climbed up to Kim's side.  
"Perk of being on Team Possible," Kim smiled, allowing herself a moment of levity before she opened the window so that the two of them could go in. As Kim had guessed, it was indeed the attic and a rather neatly arranged one at that too.

"Oh, look...a box labeled 'My gadgets for controlling ants'," Kim said, rolling her eyes in disgust. "And he wondered how his stuff was stolen."

Yori smiled a little. "More American style humor. Are all Americans like this?" she ask as she went to another part of the attic, searching through the boxes.

"Just the ones that you know," Kim said, opening the box. It was empty but then Antropy did say that his device for controlling ants was stolen so there's no surprise there.

They spent a few more minutes in the attic, searching for any thing that might even remotely help them in their search for Antropy but there was nothing up there besides boxes full of clothes and photographs of Mahlman when he was younger and with his family. Rufus had also joined in the search, going through the smaller nooks and cracks in search of anything that might be hidden in the places that they couldn't search.

Sighing in frustration, Kim set aside a family photograph that she was looking at earlier, one depicting Mahlman and his cousin Tony, according to the writing at the back oh the photo. "Anything?" she called out to Yori and Rufus.

"Nuh-uh," Rufus popped his head out of a box, covered in dust and grime as well as what looked to be glitter. Don't want to know what that is, Kim thought, eyeing Rufus cautiously as he shook himself clean.

"No, Possible-san," the other girl said and walked over to her. "Perhaps it is time for us to go downstairs?" she suggested.

"Yeah..." Kim said in agreement, looking around for an exit. She spotted a trapdoor and she lifted it up, releasing a thin layer of dust that made her cough for a brief moment. A ladder extended to the floor below and she climbed down it, Yori following behind her, while Rufus just hopped down the ladder step by step.

Downstairs, there was a very similar sense of organization to Mahlman's furniture as there was to the boxes up in the attic. All were meticulously arranged, evenly spaced and spotless, and the pictures hanging on the walls were just as organized too.

One particular picture caught Kim's eye, a recent one judging from the date printed on the edge of the picture. It was a family photograph, and besides Mahlman's face, there was another face that she recognized in the photo: Dean Mancuso.

"Cousin Tony," she said with a slight smirk. Ron's earlier suggestion came back to her mind. And the connection between the dean and Antropy was suddenly growing stronger.

"Is there something that you find amusing, Possible-san?" Yori asked, peering at the picture that Kim was looking at.

"Apparently the dean of GCU is related to Antropy. Did I tell you what he was trying to do to me when I arrived here a few day ago?" Kim asked the other girl, who shook her head in reply. "Well, he tried to get me to stop the hero business. Said it was for my own good and all that stuff."

"Perhaps he is the one who stole the device from his cousin and he is now battling us," Yori said, causing Kim to snigger.

"Yeah. That's what Ron said..." her voice trailed off for a second before she shook her head. "Come on, let's get back to searching this house."

"Hai."

"You take the first floor, I'll take the second, and Rufus, you check behind the furniture. Please, let there be something that we can use here," Kim said as the two of them started their search.

Another hour passed as the two of them searched through the house, knocking on walls and tapping on tables and drawers to see if there were any hidden compartments that they had missed out on. As Kim was searching a bedroom, Rufus ran up to her and jabbered at her, tugging at her pants.

"What's the matter?" she asked. He motioned at her to follow him and she did so, as he led her to another room which she hadn't search yet. He ran under a dresser and pushed something out: a thick leather bound book.

"Huh...now that's something interesting..." she said as she picked it up and opened it, scanning its yellowed pages briefly. Her eyes widened, at first in surprise and then, triumph as a fierce smile broke on her lips.

"Eureka."


	12. Chapter 12

August 12, 1978

Mom told me the truth yesterday! That we are descended from a line of insect shamans and that our totem is Ant, hardest and most organized of all! Oh...this is so wickedly exciting! Now I know why I keep having those weird ant dreams and why I always keep pestering Dad to buy ant farms. He doesn't know it but Mom does. Can't wait until she tells me more.

August 20, 1978

This sucks! We did a ritual today and I failed it! Ant said that I didn't have what it takes, that the duties of shaman would fall to someone else in my family. Like who? I'm the only one in the family who cares about this, besides Mom. Who should it be someone else who gets the honor?

September 1, 1978

I can't believe it! Tony gets the honor of being shaman? He doesn't even like ants! Stomps them hard and into the ground every single time he sees one! Wrecks my ant farms whenever he gets the chance! Is this some kind of cruel joke? Why him? Why not me?

June 6, 1992

Found this journal after all these years. Can't believe that it was being used as a door stopped all this time. Found out a frequency that I can use to communicate with ants. Maybe if I tweaked it further, I can accomplish even more with it. This is very exciting news indeed. Imagine the possibilities!

June 8, 1995

This is it, my break-through accomplishment! I have now managed to get an entire ant colony to do my bidding. I wonder how will the scientific community react to it? Funding, grants? Oh, I can't wait.

June 9, 1995

Okay. Even rejection doesn't hurt as much as being completely ignored. Who cares about the unified theory of complex systems? This is far more impressive! Communication and control over one of the most numerous and complex creature on our planet?

January 11, 1996

That's it. If they refused to acknowledge my works, then I'll make them acknowledge it. Watch out Go City! I'm going to bring you to your knees!

January 12, 1996

Forgot that there are superheroes in Go City. Oww...my aching body...maybe I'll need to think of something else to make them appreciate my work.

December 21, 1999

No more! Team Go just breaks me into pieces every time! Maybe I'll just find a nice quiet job to do instead. I saw that they were hiring at Smarty Mart earlier today. Maybe I'll go there after my spine has recovered enough?

July 12 2006

Have to remember to stop using this book as a door-stopper. Maybe next time I'll hide it under my dresser. So, Dr Tony Pesticide came over to my house the other day and he was acting strange, saying that I had defiled the colony with my inventions and that I should be cast out from the colony. He did something weird to me, I'm not sure what it was but I remember there was a weird feeling on my skin, like something crawling all over me. So I did what anyone would do in this kind of situation: gave him a good pounding and tossed him out of my house. That'll show him to mess with me.

PB

Yori handed the journal back to Kim after she had finished reading it. "I believe this is where Ron-san would say 'Booyah'," she said, smiling slightly.

"Yeah. We've finally got the solid evidence that says he's the villain of the hour," Kim replied, pacing around the room that Rufus had found the journal in. "Just wished I had actually gone out to pound him until he confessed much earlier though," she said with a slight hint of bitterness in her voice.

"Grrr...evil dean," Rufus growled, shaking his fist in the general direction of the photo of Mancuso that they had found in the house earlier.

"Possible-san, why did you not do so?" Yori asked, her tone neutral and non-judgmental, causing Kim to glare at her. "No. I am not attempting to judge your actions," she said reassuringly.

Kim sighed and looked away. "Because I was afraid that if he wasn't Antropy, I'd be harming an innocent and that I'll be harming my studies, my family and my future. I was being selfish," she said.

"You were being selfish...but that does not make you a bad person, Possible-san." This caused Kim to give Yori a quizzical glance.

"Why?"

"People are, by our nature, are selfish. We only see things through our eyes and it is hard for us to even consider the facts from other people's shoes. All that we do is for our own survival and welfare. However, it is the exceptional person who turns their selfish desires towards the betterment of others."

"So...my being selfish in this case was to improve the lives of others?"

"You said it yourself. If you have lost this scholarship, what would happen?"

"I'd either have to quit college or my parents will have to take out another loan to pay for my tuition fees because they've already taken a loan for the house and I...I see what you mean. Thanks, Yori," she said with a slight smile.

"You are welcome."

"That's...a very zen thing to think isn't it?"

"Yamanouchi also teaches its students philosophy. A warrior who does not understand his reasons for fighting is no better than a drunken brawler: purposeless and addicted to something meaningless."

"Yeah. I guess you're right about that. So...Ms Zen...what do you propose we do right now about Antropy?" Kim asked her archly.

"I propose that we find Antropy, string him up and we crack our knuckles at him until he tells us where Ron-san is," she said innocently.

"Okay...I take back the Ms Zen bit but I like that idea of yours," Kim laughed as she stood up. "Wade, you heard all that?"

"Every single syllable. I've already sent you Mancuso's address and a blueprint of the entire house. According to thermal images I'm getting from satellites right now, he's in his house right now."

Kim took a look at the address. "Well...what do you know? Just a block away from here. Time for us to crack some knuckles at him," she smiled to Yori.

PB

Kim looked at her watch, which indicated that the time right now was 9.14 pm. She and Yori were hiding in a pile of bushes in front of the dean's house and they could see that there was movement inside, a lot of movement. They couldn't see exactly what was moving though; Mancuso had the blinds drawn to prevent people from peeking into his house. Normally this would simply just indicate a very private person but right now Kim's paranoia was screaming 'Villain!' at her.

"Possible-san, do you have any plans to enter the house?" Yori asked.

"For our third breaking and entering of the day?" She shook her head. "I'm fresh out. Maybe I'll just walk up to the door and we'll just take it from there."

This caused a smile to break out on Yori's face. "I see you also have Ron-san's American sense of humor," she said.

"Well...I hate to break it to you but we are Americans. I'm sure that everything we do is inherently American."

Yori chuckled some more before she pointed at the rather old-fashioned looking chimney on the roof. "We will enter through there," she said. "It looks big enough to accommodate our bodies."

Kim looked at it for a while before she nodded. "Works for me," she said and aimed with her Kimmunicator, launching a grappling hook at the roof. After a quick tug to make sure that it was secured, she wrapped her arms around Yori's waist and reeled the line in, launching the two of them onto the roof.

As soon as their feet had touched the roof, Yori sprang from Kim's grasp and tread softly over to the chimney, peering down it. "We are clear, Possible-san," she said, looking back at Kim before she climbed onto and into the chimney, carefully lowering herself down it.

"Stay inside my pocket, Rufus. It might get dangerous in there," Kim said to the naked mole rat, who nodded and buried himself in her pocket. Then she counted to five before she followed Yori's lead, anchoring herself to the chimney walls with her hands and feet as she climbed down.

The climb down was brief, uneventful and unpleasant; Kim made a face when she stopped to take a look at her soot and muck covered hand when she was halfway down the chimney. Mancuso hadn't cleaned the chimney in a very long while, it seems. At least the climbdown was fast, though Kim held her position for a while first to wait for Yori to check the area out. Once she received an all clear from her, she slid down the rest of the way.

The mess that greeted her surprised her. Unlike the obsessed order that she had seen at Mahlman's house, the chaotic shambles that was Mancuso's house was a nightmare. Food wrappers strewn about, unwashed clothes lay on the furniture and Kim swore that she could see the funk wafting out from them. Hanging from the wall, she could see a degree that read 'Anthony Mancuso, Doctorate in Chemistry.' Another plague on the wall read 'Award for Best Achievement in the Field of Insecticide 2003'.

Yori was equally as unimpressed; her face scrunched up in disgust as she surveyed the area that was presumably the living room. "Your university dean is extremely untidy," she said, covering her nose with one hand.

"That's a surprise to me too," Kim said. "And I've been to his office a few times already. Maybe he needs to get someone to clean up after him."

A sudden crunch made them spin around, Kim taking on a defensive stance whilst Yori pulled out two folding fans that were tucked into her waist, wielding one in each hand. Mancuso stood before them, dressed in a pressed suit and looking extremely out of odds with the mess that surrounded him.

"Ms Possible and friend...welcome to my humble abode," he gave them a wicked smile and bowed to them.

PB

Kim didn't like this sitch at all. She had hoped to break in and catch Mancuso by surprise but he had instead surprised them, putting them on the defensive instead. She kept up a flippant expression, pretending to be annoyed by his appearance.

"Dean Mancuso, you're a hard man to get an appointment with," she said coolly. Next to her, Yori kept still, holding on tightly to her fans.

"I don't make it a habit to invite people to my house. Too much to do, so much appearances to keep," he said, shaking his head in mock embarrassment. "Would you like something to drink? Some coffee perhaps? Or are you a tea person?"

"No thanks. But you might know about something else that I want," she said, her eyes still trained on him. He didn't seem to be carrying any weapons on him but she didn't know what he was capable of since she didn't exactly fight Antropy the first time they met.

"I have something that you want? My dear, you must enlighten me as to what that is. I only stole one item from the research center last night," he said smoothly, giving her an innocent look. That statement took Kim by surprise. Last night? But the theft was two nights ago...

"Where is Ron Stoppable-san?" Yori spoke up, a quick flash of anger appearing on her face before she quickly stilled it. "We do not wish to hurt you any more than we must but if you wish to make it difficult, we would be happy to oblige you."

"Ron Stoppable?" He quirked his head as if thinking, then he tilted his head, nodding a few times. "I see, I see...so that was what you were doing..." Mancuso gave them a friendly smile.

"What did you think we were doing, Mancuso, or should we call you Antropy since that's who you are," Kim said, allowing a little of the anger she was feeling to seep into her voice. "Where's Ron?"

"Ah yes...your friend, the young man chosen by Monkey to be his vessel in the mortal world, just like Ant has chosen me to be his voice," he said with a nod of understanding. "Ah yes, my minions have taken him and I believe they are preparing him for the ritual. His appearance here was quite unexpected but a very delightful boon."

"A boon? For what?" Kim asked quickly.

"Oh haven't you heard? Monkey brains are the colony's favorite delicacy." 


	13. Chapter 13

Wrongsick! The word echoed throughout Kim's mind when she heard Antropy's words. Monkey brains? Favorite delicacy? Something within her snapped and she charged at him, together with Yori who let out an uncharacteristic howl of rage as she lunged at Antropy with her twin fans.

"What? We shouldn't fight just yet. I haven't even finished my rant yet," Antropy said as two ants, these ones the size of a large dog emerged from two piles of garbage on either side of Kim and Yori and expelled a gout of green fluid from their abdomen and straight at them. Kim saw this and immediately froze in her steps, her phobia acting up at the worst possible moment.

"Possible-san!" She felt something slam into her back and as she flew through the air, the blasts of fluid missed her and splashed on the walls instead, eating through them in a matter of seconds, leaving behind two holes.

Acid-spitting ants...what's next, Kim thought, a little shaken as she slowly got up to her feet. Yori got up as well, her face filled with concern for Kim. "Possible-san, are you alright?" she asked. Kim nodded back quickly and turned her attention back to Antropy, steeling herself.

"Where's Ron?" she demanded. "And what does the QBFG have to do with all this in the first place?"

"The Quantum Blockade Field Generator...interesting marvel of scientific development isn't it?" he said with a smile. "Did you know that it could block out cosmic radiation when used in space? Did you also know that if you use it on Earth, you could wipe out all living beings too? Of course you did, that's why you're here. To stop me from doing that," he smiled pleasantly at them.

"So why did you send your ants to Japan then? Why go after the anti-QBFG?" Kim asked.

"Anti-QBFG? What's that?" he asked, appearing to be puzzled by Kim's words. The two girls exchanged a glance at each other. Something weird was going on here, like Antropy was out of the loop of certain decisions made.

"Oh...and regarding your first question, where is the monkey boy, I wonder. My minions are keeping a very tight lip on his location. We don't want you to spoil the festivities at all. It will be quite the feast you know, extracting every single bit of his essence from his bones and devouring the bit of power that has infused his soul. I'm told that fear makes the meal taste even better," he chortled amiably.

Okay...that's it. She has had enough of this guy's food talk. Turning around and taking quick aim, Kim fired a sonic pulse at one of the acid-spitting ant while Yori hurled both fans into the other. The first exploded in a tiny chunks of exoskeleton and flesh while the other one let out a shrill cry as the sharp tips of the fan pierced its head. It staggered for a bit before it collapsed as Kim and Yori charged again at Antropy, both girls leaping up into the air and launching a double flying kick at him.

"Must this always end in violence?" he asked sadly two seconds before both feet landed on his face with a very satisfying crunch and sends him flying across the room, slamming into the wall. He got up lazily and cracked his neck. His eyes widened though; Kim and Yori had already ran up to him and they began pummeling him, punching him and kicking him for all their worth.

"Where. Is. Ron. Stoppable-san." Each word was punctuated with a hard punch or kick to Antropy's body and he stumbled away from the two girls in a daze.

"Didn't I just tell you that I have no idea where the boy is? I swear, youngsters these days just can't pay attention to a single word you tell them," he grumbled. Despite the blows he had taken, he didn't seem to be hurt at all, only rather mildly annoyed.

"Okay...this might be a little bit harder than expected..." Kim glanced over at Yori, who nodded in agreement. Their breathing was still easy but given that Antropy had already taken several blows from them and was acting normally.

And to make matters worse, Kim could hear faint sounds of chittering coming from all over the house. Her breathing started to come out in short gasps as one thought raced throughout her mind: they're coming to help him.

"Possible-san...we have to retreat," Yori murmured to her, voicing out her thoughts before she herself could say it. Kim nodded, feeling both relief and disgust at the same time. Stupid phobia of giant bugs, she complained bitterly to herself. She turned and followed Yori as the latter smashed a nearby window and the two of them jumped out of the house.

As they raced away from the house, they could hear Antropy laughter echo in the streets: "Farewell, Kim Possible and friend. The next time we meet, I will have more of mine come out and play with you!"

PB

"I hate losing," Kim said angrily as she sat on a bed in a hotel room two hours later. Fortunately for Yori and herself, Antropy did not seemed interested in chasing after them: the ants didn't swarm out of the house like Kim had feared they would. Rufus had climbed out of Kim's pocket and was lazing on the bed as well, picking at some of the food that he had scrounged out from the room's mini bar.

"I agree, Possible-san. We have lost twice to this man already and I do not like it," Yori said, sitting down next to her. There was anger on her face but there was also exhaustion and Kim felt it as well.

"Ladies, are you alright?" Wade's voice chimed in, prompting Kim to lift up her hand.

"Yeah we're fine. How about Darnia? Did she make it out of the dorm room okay?" During their flight from Antropy, Kim had sent a text to her room-mate, telling her about the dean and that she should flee GCU for now.

"She's good. She's already contacted me and I've sent her your location. She'll be heading over to meet up with you soon. By the way, just wanted to tell you that I've already finished the scans for the piece of quartz gold that you sent," Wade said.

"Anything interesting about it?" she asked.

"Based on the composition of silica, oxygen and gold found in it, this particular piece isn't a native of Australia like Yori suggested. It's local."

"Really? As in found in Go City?" Kim asked in surprise.

"Not that local. Try Arizona. There's a series of abandoned quartz reef mines there and Darnia's found some reports from local news stations about mysterious things that were seen traveling to and fro the mines. No pictures have been taken and any team sent to investigate has never returned. The first of these news was dated to about ten days ago."

"Great! When can we get a ride to Arizona?" Kim asked, pleased at this development.

"Four hours. In the meantime, you two should get some rest. The olfactory sensors of the Kimmunicator tells me that the two of you reek. Get some sleep , food and freshen up. And I'm not taking no for an answer. I love you Kim and I love Ron too, but there's no way I'm going to risk losing the two of you because the rescuer is too tired to make the jump." The Kimmunicator screen flickered out after he had finished that.

She sighed and lay down on the bed. "So...time for awkward girl-talk while we wait for our ride to arrive?" she asked Yori.

"Or perhaps we can ask my ride?" Yori suggested.

"You have a ride?" Kim sat up immediately. Yori nodded and went to the telephone, dialing a number and waiting a while before she started talking to someone in Japanese. After a brief chat, she set down the receiver. "We will leave in thirty minutes," she said and bowed to Kim.

"Spankin'," she grinned. "Alright...we've got half an hour to do prep for this mission. I'd suggest we'd do what Wade said we should do. I so do not want to have this funk on me for any more than necessary."

"Yeah...funky," Rufus agreed, pinching his nose in a combination of disgust and agreement.

PB

Forty five minutes later, Kim and Yori were on a helicopter heading towards the west and it felt good, mostly because the two of them had gotten in a quick shower, a fresh change of clothes and a quick bite to eat before meeting up with Yori's ride.

Wade, of course, found out about the new ride that Kim had gotten and he wasn't too pleased about it. "Kim, I'm worried about you and Yori! The two of you are pushing yourselves too hard! The risk is too..."

"Wade," Kim said softly, cutting him off. "That's going to be a risk that I'm going to have to take. Ron told me once that he couldn't imagine life without me. Well, I can't imagine life without him either and I'm going to do everything that I can to make sure that he's back with me safe and sound." Yori nodded her head ever so subtly as Kim said that.

He sighed and shook his head violently. "Was I this stupid when I was crushing on Monique?" he asked.

"Well since I've never made a love ray to get my crush to fall in love in me...I'd say yes."

"Fine...is there anything that I can do to help the two of you lovebirds?"

Kim spluttered in shock as did Yori. "Excuse me?"

"What? You two are ones who are so desperately in love with Ron that you're willing to risk everything in order to save him," he rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I've already uploaded your flight trajectory to the helicopter. Is there anything else that I can do for you?"

"Oh...er...nothing...no wait! Just see if you can get a scan of the mines and where the ants are most likely to be located in. Please and thank you!" Kim said quickly and turned off the Kimmunicator. Yori gave her an sheepish smile and looked away, the smile quickly fading as she grew solemn, looking to be deep in thought.

"What's the sitch, Yori?" Kim asked the other girl after giving her a moment to herself.

"Nothing, Possible-san...just thinking about what we're going to encounter when we're infiltrate the mines. Whether we'll be able to face up to Antropy, his minions and accomplish everything that we've set out to do."

"Of course we will. We will because we have to. When we go to the mines, we'll find Ron, rescue him, find Antropy, kick him all over the place until he knows well enough to never come back again and bother us," Kim said firmly.

"You sound very confident, Possible-san."

"Comes with having saved the world at least twenty times now. You'll get the hang of it," Kim said blithely.

"If I may ask, Possible-san?" Yori asked a minute later.

"Hmmm?"

"Do you ever think of what would happen if you fail?"

Silence. Then Kim exhaled once. "To be honest...yeah. And it scares me a lot to think about it. And that drives me, pushes me because if I fail, the man that I love will die as well as everyone else in this world that I care about."

"So you draw strength from the thought of failure?"

"Something like that. What about you? Do you ever think of what would happen?" Kim asked back.

"I...have never given it much consideration until today," she hesitated a little.

"And?"

"I do not want to lose to our foe again. That much is certain," she said with a wry smile. Then she closed her eyes, looking like she was trying to rest as much as she can before they arrive at the mines.

Good idea, Kim thought and closed her eyes. It's looking like it's going to be a very long night indeed.


	14. Chapter 14

Kim was awakened by a gentle shake on her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw Yori looking at her. "We are arriving at the mines, Possible-san. We should prepare ourselves," she said.

Nodding back, Kim turned on the Kimmunicator. "Wade, you've got anything for us about the mines?" she asked.

"Yeah. There's a particular mine that's most likely the center of activity. I've already placed a marker for it on the Kimmunicator so that you can look it up later. That mine has some very faint tremor readings coming from its deepest levels so that's probably where Antropy and his ants are. Hopefully you'll find Ron down there too. Oh and there isn't an actual map of the mine but I did upload an approximation of the mine's layout into the Kimmunicator so that should help a little," Wade said.

"Please and thank you. Is there anything else that I should know?"

"Oh yeah, Darnia told me to tell you that she's not going to let the two of you off for leaving her alone in Go City."

Kim laugh softly and said, "I'm looking forward to that then." The screen switched to black and she turned to Yori, who was busy checking on her gear. A chain with two weighted ends, two brand new fans, a lot of shurikens, several small leather bags and pellets. Rufus had already picked up one of the shuriken and was pretending that it was a sword of his size, slashing and stabbing at the air.

"Where do you find the space to keep all those stuff?" she asked.

"I have a ninja utility belt," Yori replied without missing a beat.

"Really?"

Yori looked at her, a slight twinkle in her eyes. "Perhaps."

"Okay...you know I'm not so sure if you're capable of sarcasm or not," Kim said guardedly. Yori simply smiled and returned her attention to her gear.

Minutes later, she was done and the gear had vanished, secreted somewhere about her person, although Kim didn't see where she had hidden them (she swore that some of the shurikens went up Yori's sleeves but she wasn't too sure). The pilot, dressed in a gray ninja uniform said something in Japanese and Yori nodded, translating it to Kim as "We have arrived."

The helicopter made a swift but gentle descent as it landed in front of a mining camp which looked like it had been abandoned for nearly a century. Kim whistled softly to Rufus and he scrambled up her leg and into her pocket where he was safe inside. As the two of them got out of the helicopter, the pilot called out to them: "Kouun wo inorimasu!"

Yori smiled at him. "Domo arigatou gozaimasu," she said and bowed to him as the helicopter took off, leaving them behind.

"Good luck?" Kim asked Yori as they turned to the mines and she turned on her Kimmunicator. A red arrow appeared on the screen to signify herself whereas a blue dot indicate the mine that they should travel to, which was several hundred yards to the north-east.

"Yes," she replied and pulled her hood over her head, looking very much like a ninja from most movies. "It is something that I suspect that we will need a lot of in the coming hour."

PB

Like before, it was an easy entry. The mine that was shown on the Kimmunicator was not sealed so Kim sent Rufus ahead with his little camera to scout ahead while the two girls prepared their low-light vision equipment.

Once they were ready, the two girls started to make their way into the mine. There was several rotted wooden supports still standing, with broken lanterns hanging from them every so often. Kim glanced down at the Kimmunicator and watched as Rufus' camera showed that it was a straight passage for another two hundred yards before there was a fork in the passage. She changed the view to the map that Wade had uploaded for her and consulted it for a moment.

"Rufus, go left. You should be going downwards after about fifty yards," she instructed him. The camera bobbed up and down to indicate that he understood her and he turned left as she had told him.

This went on for another twenty minutes before Rufus' camera picked up a strange gleam. "Rufus, what was that?" Kim called out to him. The camera stopped and spun around before focusing on the gleam. It was coming from a small crack in the wall and he moved up to it. It was just big enough for him to squeeze through it and he did so.

When he had done so, a sharp gasp escaped both Kim's and Yori's lips: Rufus had found a massive cavern, filled with gold-lined quartz. There were ants everywhere, giant and small ones, each striking at a piece of like it was a miner. There was a huge version of the device that Kim had destroyed two nights ago, half completed as it is.

However, it was the core of the device that held the two girls' attention: Ron was bound there, hands above his head and his shirt torn off. There was a strange symbol drawn (at least, Kim hoped it was drawn) on his chest and she didn't know if it was a trick of the light, but she could have sworn that it was glowing, resonating every second like a beating heart.

"Is he...is Ron-san still alive?" Yori whispered. The camera moved forward as if Rufus wanted to go and have a look himself.

"Rufus, no. Stay there and stay hidden. We're coming for you right now," Kim said and then she looked at Yori, her eyes gleaming with anticipation.

It didn't take them long to find the crack that Rufus had found earlier. There was no way they could squeeze through the hole but a quick scan of the approximation pointed out that the passage they were in looped around in a circle and lead to the chamber so they quickly and stealthily followed it. The approximation proved to be correct and soon they were in the chamber that Rufus had found earlier.

The naked mole rat ran up to them as soon as he found them and squeaked excitedly to Kim and Yori, pointing at Ron. Kim gave him a little smile and petted her pocket, which he immediately climbed into. "Give us a moment, little guy," she whispered. "We're going to get him back."

Yori glanced at her. "Possible-san, we need a plan," she said quietly.

"Yeah...I'm thinking of getting you play distraction while I go off and rescue Ron..." Kim said thoughtfully.

"So that you do not have to face the giant ants?"

"Yup."

Yori gave her a knowing smile and was about to step out when she noticed something. "Wait...someone is coming..." she said softly, gesturing in the direction of her gaze. Kim turned to take a look and her eyes narrowed slightly.

"Antropy."

He was walking in from an alcove high in the chamber's wall, literally, walking down the wall towards the device and towards Ron, his demeanor calm and thoughtful as if he was contemplating about something.

Kim felt her jaw tighten at the sight of him but then Yori placed her hand on hers and she calmed down a little. She gave her a tight-lipped smile and turned her attention back to Antropy who was now walking over to Ron.

"What's he doing?" she whispered, peering hard at them. At this point, she wished that Wade had set the goggles up for telescopic vision as well so that she could see what exactly Antropy was doing but as it were, it didn't. For now, she could see that he was leaning down and whispering something to him and Ron stirred weakly at his words.

He's alive, the words sprang up into her mind and she felt a small wave of relief wash through her body. Good to know that this was still going to be a rescue mission, she thought.

"Possible-san."

She turned back to Yori. "Hmmm?"

"Will there be a change of plans or do you want to rescue Ron-san now?" Yori asked.

She thought about it for a brief moment, looking around the cavern as she was thinking. She noticed something and the wheels in her head started turning ever so quickly.

"Slight change. You're still the distraction but keep to the shadows. If you're in trouble, use this." She handed Yori two of the insect smoke pellets that Wade had given her earlier. Rufus, go and free Ron while Yori is distracting the ants. You think you can handle that, little guy?" she asked.

"Uh huh. No problem," the naked mole rat proclaimed proudly.

"And what about you, Possible-san?"

"I'm going to start a cave-in," she said with a slow grin.

Yori looked hard at Kim. "You are quite possibly the most insane person that I have ever met, Possible-san...will you explain your plan to us?"

PB

"Well?" Kim said after she had explained her plan to the two of them. Rufus glanced at Yori who simply shrugged.

"It is feasible," she said. "But our timing has to be be perfect or we will all risk being trapped in here."

Kim grinned at them. "Are you saying that you can't do it?"

"Is that a challenge?" Yori asked, tensing up a little. "Because I accept it."

"Good," Kim turned back to the device where Ron was held. She could see that the ants were working at an extremely rapid pace. Another hour or two and the device would be finished from the looks of it. "Shall we get started on it then?" she asked, looking at Yori.

The other girl had already vanished.

"I'm going to have to ask her to teach me that trick one day," she grumbled to herself and turned her attention to the ants while Rufus scurried out into the dark, sneaking from cover to cover as he slowly made his way to Ron.

Yori's first strike happened moments later without warning; a giant ant collapsed suddenly and the quartz is was gathering scattered the ground with a loud tinkly crash. The other ants turned in its direction, their feelers twitching about curiously as they approached their fallen comrade.

The second strike dropped another giant ant, one that was inspecting the first ant, this time causing it to screech loudly as it thrashed about in its death throes, five shurikens embedded in its head. Antropy turned to look at the chaos and even from this distance, Kim could feel the anger radiating from him.

"They are here! Search for Kim Possible and her friend, my minions! Find them and rend them from limb to limb!" his voice echoed throughout the chamber.

"No! Don't do anything to them!" she heard Ron call out weakly as he struggled to break free from his bonds. She gnawed her lower lip and stealthily moved out from her vantage point. As the noise from the ants grew louder, she fired a grappling hook up into the ceiling and reeled herself up quickly. She had spotted an alcove earlier when she was scanning the chamber and that was where she was headed to right now.

She arrived at the alcove without being spotted and glanced down to see what was happening on the ground. About every ten seconds, she could see another ant drop to the ground but as for Yori, she could barely catch a glimpse of her; perhaps a lightning fast steak as she darted from cover to cover, avoiding the ants and Antropy's gaze. She did manage to catch sight of Rufus though; he was on the device itself, making his way to Ron, who seemed to have noticed his pet but was wisely staying silent.

Good, so far so good. Everything was going well. Kim allowed herself the pleasure of a smile. She kept her eye trained on Ron and Rufus, watching as he was released from the device...which suddenly flare brightly as soon as he was free from it.

Too soon, she thought and quickly she aimed her Kimmunicator at the cavern's ceiling, at the group of stalactite that hung there and fired a sonic pulse at them, causing them to crack and fall down onto the ants below. There was the sound of cracking shell as the ants were crushed underneath the stalactites.

"Ron! Rufus! Yori! Get out of there!" she shouted down at the chamber as the ants were thrown into a chaotic frenzy. Then she looked up and fired another sonic pulse at the ceiling, bringing down another chunk of stalactite.

"Kim Possible!" Antropy roared in anger, his voice echoing in the cavern, making it sound like a hundred people with the same voice was calling out for her. "Colony, get her and tear her apart before she can ruin our plans!" The ants turned and started to march towards Kim.

Or at least they would have. Two clouds of smoke suddenly appearing, causing the ants inside them to thrash about wildly as they were suddenly blinded by the smoke.

"Alright, Yori!" Kim cried out jubilantly and she fired a third sonic pulse into the ceiling, this time dislodging a third set of stalactites that sent them crashing onto the device. Ron and Rufus were already clear of the device by then and the device was crushed underneath the falling stalactite before exploding, showering the ants in a hail of limestone, quartz and metal.

"Booyah!" Ron shouted as he picked himself up from the ground and looked around for Rufus, who ran up his leg and onto his shoulder before he began to guide him out of the cavern. Kim grinned fiercely and jumped off the alcove, anchoring a grappling line to the wall to slow her descent down. As she was descending, she heard the sound of a spit and hiss and suddenly she was falling uncontrollably, landing on the ground in an ungraceful thud. Acid-spitting ants, she thought groggily as she tried to get up to her feet.

"Kim Possible!" she heard Antropy call out her name again and she felt him lift her up. Another series of explosion rocked the entire cavern; the device was apparently non-OSHA compliant, she thought as she was brought up to face level with Antropy.

"You've destroyed the device! Freed the avatar of Monkey! Deprived us of the source of energy that we would use to power the device! The colony will not be able to claim this world as its own!" he hissed in anger, the veins in his face bulging in his rage before he gave her a hard punch in her face. She heard something break and there was the taste of iron in her lips.

"Pain will be your reward for this misdeed that you have inflicted upon the colony," he said, the echo still reverberating in his voice and raised his fist again. Something whipped out of nowhere and wrapped itself around his wrist, preventing him from hitting Kim again.

"What..." he looked down at the chain around his wrist. Yori suddenly appeared out of nowhere and plunged a shuriken into his side, causing him to drop Kim out of surprise. This time, she landed on her feet and she aimed her Kimmunicator at his chest.

"I'd hate to sound off and run..." she said and delivered a sonic pulse directly into him. The sounds of breaking bones reached her ear as Antropy was sent flying through the air and crashing into the wall far away from her.

"Really, Possible-san?" Yori asked, giving her a critical look as a third explosion rocked the entire cavern, causing the ground to shake beneath them.

"What?" Kim said, wiping the blood from her face. "It felt like the right thing to say..." She glanced at the Kimmunicator to make sure that the cool-down time was over before she aimed at the ceiling once more. Another sonic pulse fired up at the ceiling caused more of the ceiling to collapse on fall onto the ground, crushing many of the ants that were still inside the cavern.

Kim and Yori turned away and started to run, not turning their heads to look back even as the air was filled with the sounds of falling rocks and the death thrills of thousands of ants.


	15. Chapter 15

They ran and they ran, not pausing for breath until everyone was out of the mine, as it quaked and rocks began falling down around them. In the distance, Kim could see Ron and Rufus outside, looking out for them. The two girls jumped out at the same time, just as the earth shook greatly underneath their feet and a rock slide occurred, sealing the mine shut behind them.

"KP! Yori!" Ron said in relief, limping over to them with a huge smile on his face. Kim looked at him with a smile which quickly changed to a look of horror when she saw his legs: through his pants, she could flesh mauled terribly just above his knees to the point where she swore she could see a bit of bone.

"Ron! We have to get you to a hospital now!" she said as Yori pulled off her ninja mask, took out the PDA that Kim had given her earlier and made a call to Wade.

"Oh this...it's nothing...I'll be fine...okay fine, it's hurts like crazy but I'm just glad that you two are alright for the most part," he tried to say dismissively.

She peeled off the night vision goggles and moved to his side, running a finger on the symbol on his chest, which wasn't glowing right now. "Well...I'm glad that you're back with me now," she murmured softly and leaned up to kiss him.

Their kiss was a much shorter one than she wanted: she felt pain shoot through her face and she broke it off, holding her nose. "Owwww...by dose..." she complained, holding her nose with one hand.

Ron petted her head comfortingly and just hugged her instead. This was just as good too, she thought.

"Stoppable-san..." she heard Yori say softly, followed by Ron breaking the hug as he went over to her and hugged her too.

"Thanks, Yori...for rescuing me too," he said.

"It...it is good to see you safe and sound," she said, her cheeks flushed red in embarrassment before she returned the hug. Kim simply smiled and let them be for now.

"Hey! What about me?" Rufus protested as he climbed up Ron's leg and punched his face.

"Course not! How could I forget my main man?" he said and held up his hand to Rufus who slapped it with his paw.

"Ron," Wade's voice came from the PDA that Yori was still holding on to.

"Hey, Wade. Good to hear your voice again," Ron said, looking at the Kimmunicator.

"Right back at you. You should be getting an emergency helicopter arriving in ten minutes," he said with a grin.

"Hey, what about me?" Darnia's face shoved Wade out of the Kimmunicator screen. "Don't I get to say welcome back to...what's his name again?"

"Do I even know you?" Ron stared at her, causing Kim to burst out laughing and even Yori to hide a smile on her lips. It really was good to have him back with them, Kim thought as she leaned her head on his back and closed her eyes. The mission was done and now all they had to do was look forward to their time in GCU together.

PB

"Really now? Kim, I've seen a lot of things but I still find some of the things that you've seen and accomplish hard to believe," a middle-aged woman dressed in a paramilitary uniform and an eye-patch said to Kim as they stood in the lobby of a hospital.

"Believe it, Dr Director. You should check out the mine. I think you'll be able to find the cave-in that I mentioned as well as the ruined device that those ants were building," Kim said to her, an icepack on her face muffling her voice. A doctor had already taken a look at her nose and declared it a minor fracture though really her main concern was Ron who was rushed off to intensive care as soon as they had arrived. It had been several hours and the sun had already risen; she had contacted Global Justice on the matter to inform them about what had happened.

"Agent Du has already been sent there to confirm your words. Still, if what you say is true, this is quite troubling. I'll have the rest of GJ on this Antropy's tail if your story checks out to be true and if he survived the cave-in. In the meantime, get some rest and don't worry about your boyfriend. Our medical facilities are the best in the world and for someone of your stature, free of charge," Dr Director smiled warmly at Kim.

"Thanks," she smiled at her and Dr Director turned to leave. Kim turned as well, heading to the intensive care ward, where Yori was, sitting on a bench. Her head was drooping ever so often; it was clear that she was just as exhausted as Kim was feeling right now.

She stopped by at the coffee machine and got two cups of coffee before she went back to Yori. "Hey. Not sure if you like your coffee black but I thought you could use this," she said as she handed her one of the cups, taking a seat next to her.

"Domo," Yori smiled gratefully to her, accepting the cup and took a sip of it.

"So...you're going to go back to Japan after this is over?" Kim asked before she took a sip from her cup of coffee.

"I will. Why do you ask?" she took another sip of her coffee.

"Just...wondering about a few things like...what do ninjas do when they graduate from ninja school?"

"We do whatever it is that we want to do with our lives. For instance, I wish to become a teacher in Yamanouchi, to guide others along the path of ninjutsu and honor."

"That's great Yori. I think you'd make a great teacher."

"Thank you. And what about you, Possible-san? What do you wish to do?" she asked.

"Me? I'm going to keep doing what I always do best: save the world until I'm too old and cranky to move," she said with a grin on her face.

"A fair decision. You never struck me as the person who would be satisfied with the more normal things of life. I admire you."

"Thanks...hey, could you humor me on one thing?"

Yori tilted her head curiously, waiting for Kim to ask her question.

"Could you teach me that move where I turn my head and you're not there anymore?"

She laughed softly and nodded. "It will take more time than we will have together but yes, I can teach you the basics if you like."

An hour later, a doctor emerged out of the room that Ron was staying in and looked around for Kim and Yori, who weren't around. "Er..."

"Oh hey doc. What's the sitch?" Kim asked as she suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Aah! Oh...Ms Possible. This is about your friend...er Mr Stoppable," he said, looking somewhat flustered.

"Is there something wrong with Ron?" she asked quickly as the two girls stepped up close, their faces filled with concern.

" Oh no. In fact, he's..." he was interrupted by Ron stepping out of the room, dressed in a hospital gown. He looked perfectly fine; even the wounds on his legs had knitted and was nothing more than scarred flesh.

"Hey, doc. You got anything good to eat? The food here is terrible. I swear that goo was mystery meat," he made a face.

"Well, I'd give him a clean bill of health but we'd want to keep him in here for an observation, just in case. I've never seen anyone heal like this before," he said with a curious look at Ron.

"Well, Shego survived an electrocution, the collapse of a radio tower and a fifty foot fall and she only had singed skin and hair after that."

"Hmmm...that is interesting too. Maybe I can extract some sort of..." the doctor mumbled as he walked away. He stopped and turned to them. "Well, since he's well, you may spend some time with him," he said before he resumed walking away.

"Thanks doc. We'll do just that," she said, smiling at Ron as she walked into his room with him, Yori suddenly appearing out of the shadows and slipping into the room too.

The next day arrived quickly enough and Ron was discharged from the medical facility with a clean bill of health. Kim and Yori were both waiting for him, both dressed casually for the first time in days. He gave them a wave and walked up to them, grinning from ear to ear. "What's up, ladies?" he said, waving at Yori before he leaned in to give Kim a kiss.

"Stoppable-san, it is good to see that you are well once more," Yori said, bowing at him, her eyes closed and a smile on her lips.

"Same here," Kim said as she broke away from their kiss. "We're starting classes tomorrow and I'm glad you don't have to miss out on it."

"Oh right...classes..." he made a face. "You know, why don't we just become full-time heroes? That way we don't have to do all the studying and what not and we can just hang all day long while waiting for our next mission," he suggested.

Yori laughed softly. "Stoppable-san, your American sense of humor is only matched by your American lack of misunderstanding the situation," she said.

"What's that suppose to mean?" he asked her curiously.

"She means there is no way I'm going to be a slacker and neither are you," Kim said sternly.

"Awww man."

She shook her head in mock despair and turn to look at Yori. "So...you're heading back to Japan soon?" she asked her.

"Yes. I have tasks that I need to perform. Perhaps we will meet again soon," she said, just as a helicopter appeared out of nowhere and a rope ladder was unfurled, allowing her to climb up.

"Bye Yori. It was great working with you," Kim said, reaching out with her hand.

"Likewise, Kim Possible. I look forward to working with you again, hopefully on a less stressful mission," she replied, taking her hand and shaking it firmly before she took a hold of the ladder and the helicopter took off while she was still climbing it.

Kim and Ron waved goodbye to her and she waved back to them until the helicopter was a speck in the horizon. She turned to him with a wistful smile on her face. "She's actually pretty fun to hang around with. I think I'm going to miss her more than I thought," she said.

"Yeah...she's one heck of a girl...but you're even better, of course," he said hastily, when his girlfriend gave him a cool stare.

"And don't you forget it. Now, we'd better get back to GCU. We've got a lot of things to do tomorrow and I don't want us to be lagging behind..." she said, as the two of them walked towards her car, Ron nodding in agreement as he slipped his hand around her waist.

No more surprises, she smiled, getting into her car. It's going to be a great year ahead.

Okay, maybe just one surprise, Kim thought as she stared at Yori, who was sitting on a chair, reading a book quietly when she and Ron entered their class. From the look of Ron's face, he was equally as surprised as she was.

"Yori..." she said as she went over to her and took a seat next to her. The other girl looked at her and gave her a demure look.

"Possible-san. What a pleasant surprise. I did not expect to see you so soon," she said smoothly. "Stoppable-san," she stood up and extended her hand to him. He took it and they shook hands, though Kim did detect the faintest of blushes on her face.

"What are you doing here? I thought you said you were going back to Japan to perform some tasks and stuff," Kim asked, peering hard at her.

"And I have already performed them. This is my latest task," she replied, taking her seat once more as Ron took an empty one next to Kim. Rufus climbed out of his pocket at this point and upon seeing Yori, climbed out and went to her. "Yori!" he squeaked.

"Rufus-san, it is good to see you again," she smiled and petted his head.

"Latest task? Meaning?" It was Ron's turn to ask.

"I am here to obtain a college degree," she replied simply as Darnia entered the room.

"Oh! Hi there, nin..." Yori affixed a stare at her, which promptly made her close her mouth. "Hi there," she said, a little more subdued and then she turned to Kim and Ron. "So...where have I seen you before?"

"The photo frame on my drawer?" Kim supplied helpfully. "Also you just spoke to him the other day on the Kimmunicator?"

"Oooh...you're her boyfriend? Nice to finally meet you in person," she grinned broadly and extended her hand to him. "I'm Darnia. Kim's room-mate."

"Ron. Kim mentioned that you gave us some help earlier. Much appreciated," he took her hand and shook it.

As Darnia, Ron and Yori started talking amongst themselves, Kim simply leaned back in her seat and smiled. Yup, definitely a great year ahead of her.


	16. Chapter 16

A collective gasp of shock shook Kim out of her revery and she looked around. Her eyes widened when she saw what had provoked the gasps: Antropy had just walked in through the door, his costume in tattered rags and his body twisted in ways that shouldn't be possible in a living person. He saw her and gave her a pleasant smile, as if he was seeing a long lost friend that he had met in years.

"Ms Possible, the colony wishes to have a word with you and your friends," he said amiably, though with a strange echo in his voice and snapped his fingers. Ants burst out of every nook and cranny in the room, causing almost everyone to get up and leave in a panic. Plus side, Kim thought as she climbed up on her seat, flick-able ants. Minus side, Ron was having a panic attack right now, hopping up on his seat and screaming like a little girl.

"Yori!" she called out to her as she made a standing leap from chair to chair, avoiding the other panicking students before launching a flying kick at Antropy. Yori did the same, vaulting from her side and landed a diving punch on Antropy's face.

He looked at the foot and fist on his body and then gave the two of them a curious look. "You know that didn't work the first time right?" he said nonchalantly.

"Worth a second shot," Kim lifted her arm up and Yori pulled her arm back quickly before she fired a sonic pulse at him, snapping his head back with a loud crack. By this time, the other students have already left the room and there was an alarm ringing., Only Darnia and Ron remained in the class, she being terrified out of her wits to do anything and he also being too terrified out of his wits to really do anything either. Rufus had already scrambled out of his pocket and was doing his best to flick the ants away from Ron's body.

There was another sickening crack as Antropy forced his head back into its proper position and Kim and Yori jumped back, taking on defensive stances on nearby chairs, occasionally stopping to flick away the ants that were crawling up their legs. "And if that had worked the first time, I wouldn't be here now would I?" he said, sounding a little annoyed.

"What do you want, Antropy?" Yori said coldly, balancing herself precariously on the chair as more ants crawled up her legs. She flicked her legs every so often to knock them away but they still kept crawling up her.

"What do I want? It doesn't matter what I want; what matters is what the colony wants and the colony wants the two of you disposed off so that we may reclaim the power of Monkey and use it to rid this world of all life, save the ones that the colony deems necessary towards our betterment," he started to say. Kim sighed in exasperation: villainous rant alert. She turned to look at Yori, who glanced back at her, nodding slightly as she drew a shuriken from under her sleeve.

"Now, I am certain that you must be wondering about a lot of things. Why was the anti-QBFG destroyed? Why was he taken in the first place?" Antropy pointed at Ron.

"Er...not really. We stopped you from building your large-scale QBFG earlier and now we're going to stop you from trying to kill us. That should be okay with you, yes?" Kim asked as Yori hurled the shuriken directly at his throat. He twisted his neck out of the way and the blade grazed his neck, drawing blood as it impaled itself on the whiteboard behind him with a loud twang.

"It's very simple really: destroy the anti-QFBG and nothing can stop the original device from being activated! Your boyfriend here was nothing more than a happy coincidence: a more convenient and power source of energy than the one that we had originally planned to use. Even a drop of his blood contained much mystical energy to power a miniature version of the device that is potent enough to kill all life within a three mile radius," he continued as if he weren't interrupted.

"So you have already re-built this device?" Yori asked, looking a little alarmed.

"We lack his blood," Antropy pointed at Ron. "We desire it."

"Oh no! I'm not going to let you hurt my boyfriend again," Kim said angrily and turned on the hyper sonic emission on the Kimmunicator; she have had just enough of trying to brush away the ants on her legs. They immediately turned and crawled away from her, fleeing the piercing noise but she did feel a sharp sting as they left her; one of them must have bitten her. She hopped down from the chair and felt a strange sense of vertigo wash over her. "Wha..." she murmured, her hand going to her head to stop her vision from spinning.

"Oh dear...I think you were bitten, weren't you?" Antropy said with a sharp grin. "Did you know that there are so many different types of ants out there, Ms Possible? Crazy ants, slaver ants, ants that spray acid, poisonous ants."

PB

She felt weak as she fell down to her knees. Yori and Darnia was by her side almost immediately, concern showing on their face. "Possible-san...take this..." Yori said, handing her a tiny bundle of leaves wrapped together tightly. Kim nodded and took the bundle, swallowing it.

"No one." She heard Ron say in a slow, angry manner. "No one messes with my girl." A gasp escaped Darnia's lips as the chairs around them began to float in the air, a blue aura surrounding Ron's body. Rufus scrambled away from Ron in a panic, running to the girls' side.

Kim shook her head and looked at Antropy, who merely smiled at Ron. "And what are you going to do about it, monkey boy?" he said, waiting for Ron's reply.  
He responded by leaping up and sailing through the air, landing a dropkick on Antropy that drove him into the wall again. The older man shook his head, spitting out blood from the force of the blow and opened his mouth to speak but Ron's fist found his face first.

"No. One. Poisons. My. Girlfriend. Understand?" he growled, punctuating each word with a bone shattering punch. Antropy grunted, showing the first expression of pain that Kim had ever seen on his face. Then, with a grunt, he spat into Ron's face, who stepped back, howling in pain, his hands on his eyes as Kim saw thin wisp of smoke flow from between his fingers.

"Ron!" she tried to stand up but a wave of nausea washed through her body, coupled with the fact that the hypersonic emission was still active meant that she was having the worst headache of her entire life. Yori, however, stood up quickly and rushed over to Ron's side, pulling out two fans from under her clothes. As soon as she had drawn close, she swung at him with her left fan, only to pull back as he reacted by dodging to the right and she slashed at him with her other fan, drawing a small nick that oozed a thick line of blood.

He glared at Yori and made a backhanded fist swing at her but she managed to back-flip out of the way in time and while in mid-flip, she flicked her arms hard, releasing a fan of shurikens in his direction, which he took on his arm, leaving a neat row of blades on it.

This gave Ron the time to recover though and he sprang into the air again, wrapping his legs around Antropy's neck as he used the momentum of his jump to propel his opponent down to the ground. Antropy staggered up to his feet, just in time to see Ron charge up to him and launch a rising uppercut that propelled him into the air. Quickly, Ron jumped up after Antropy, launching a flurry of punches and kicks at him.

By this time, Antropy had recovered a little and began blocking and countering Ron's attacks. They rose and fell back to the ground, punching and kicking at each other all the way through. An instant before they landed, they both lashed out at each other with their feet, connecting with the other and they were sent flying to opposite ends of the class.

"Ron!" Kim shouted in concern as she tried to get up but a second wave of nausea washed through her and she released it by throwing up.

"Ewww..." Darnia made a face as Yori swung over to her side. "That is good...it means the antidote is working," the latter said in relief.

"Next time, can you give her something that isn't so gross?"

"I will try next time though I doubt the other antidotes are as effective as this one."

Antropy slowly rose to his feet at the same time that Ron did, touching his face and wiping the blood away. "The colony was right. You are quite the powerful one," he said and pulled the shurikens out from his arm without flinching. The blood on the blades oozed and dried up rapidly, coagulating within seconds.

"And I'm not even warmed up yet," Ron said lightly, flexing his arms. "You want a piece of me, Ant Man...oh...oh...now I get it..." he said, apparently noticing something and Antropy grinned at that point before he darted towards his opponent.

"Stoppable-san!" Yori cried out in alarm in an attempt to warn him. He looked back at Antropy a little too late; the older man had reached him and had slashed his arm with the shuriken. Ron yelped in pain and hopped back but Antropy followed the slash with a fierce roundhouse kick that dropped him almost immediately.

He looked at the bloodied blade in his hand and gave Yori a smile. "My thanks for giving me something to collect his blood with. Now I must go. I have a city to wipe out." He turned and ran out of the room as Ron staggered back to his feet, still stunned by the blow that he had just received.

Kim tried to stand up again and managed to this time even though she still felt nauseous. "Aaah...we're going to need to stop him again...I'm really starting hate this guy a lot...excuse me..." she said before she threw up again.

PB

The police arrived not long after Antropy had left and Kim and Ron were taken away to the police station (as luck would have it, it was Precinct 48) as they were questioned about what Antropy was after. She was still nauseous for the most part and given her reputation and current condition, she was released soon after. Yori and Darnia were both waiting for her anxiously outside the precinct; it was about thirty minutes since Antropy invaded the university.

"Kim, you still puking?" Darnia asked her. She nodded in reply and promptly threw up into a nearby bush.

"You sure this is normal, Yori?" Darnia turned to ask the other girl.

"This certainly is not. But I assume that it is merely the potent nature of the poison that is coursing through Possible-san's veins. She will be fine in time," Yori said reassuringly.

"Right..." Kim said hoarsely. "Wade, you have anything on Antropy right now?" she asked, lifting her Kimmunicator so that she could talk to Wade.

"Yeah...I'm getting a weird kind of energy reading from underneath Go City. I'm guessing that's where the..." there was a weird static that ran across the Kimmunicator's screen.

"Wade, what was that?" Kim asked, as Yori and Darnia gathered around her, looking at the Kimmunicator.

"That's weird...the energy reading just spiked up all of a sudden. It's similar to the QBFG readings that scientists had recorded earlier but there's something off about it," he said, as a pop-up of two energy signatures appeared on the screen.

"Sounds bad. Check up on Doctor Hasegawa and see if he managed to get the anti-QBFG working again. I think we might be needing it," Kim said. "Yori, go get ready to kick ass. Darnia...find some place safe to hide."

"Got it Kim...and..." the weird static happened again, this time stronger than before. "Kim...los...can...ad me?" she could barely hear Wade say before the Kimmunicator screen went blank.

"What was that?" Darnia asked curiously while Kim checked her watch to see if it was working. Everything was working fine (well she didn't give the sonic pulse emitter a test obviously) except for the communication channel with Wade. She took out her cellphone and checked the signal bar. There wasn't any.

"Okay...I think we just stepped into a horror movie here," Kim said. "No signal. I think that energy reading Wade was talking is jamming all sorts of communication signals."

"So we do not know where Antropy is right now?" she asked.

Kim nodded. "I'm afraid so."


	17. Chapter 17

"So we are unable to communicate with Wade at all?" Yori asked warily.

"The signal jamming is pretty solid actually," Kim said. "I've actually never run into anything that could jam Wade's signal like this before."

"Hmmm..." Darnia glanced at Kim. "Do you have a larger model of that watch?" she asked suddenly.

"Yeah. Why?" Kim asked her.

"Can I have a look at it?" she asked, holding out her hand expectantly. Yori reached into her pocket and handed it Darnia, who blinked in surprise. "You have one of these?"

"No. Possible-san lent this to me a few days ago," she explained.

"Oh..." Darnia took the PDA from her and started to turn it around as she carefully examined the device. "Yup...I thought he did attach one to this thing," she grinned and flipped it around, opening a port to reveal a plug.

"Is that a telephone cable port?" Kim asked incredulously.

"Apparently you could surf the internet on this thing old-school," Darnia said with a grin. "C'mon, we're going to borrow a phone-line," she said as she trotted into the precinct.

PB

There was quite a stir going on inside the precinct as they entered. People were going around in a panic and from what Kim could observe, there was a near total breakdown in communications as radio and wireless communications connection had been jammed. Interestingly enough, the phones were all still ringing, and they were ringing constantly, with officers trying to answer them as best as they could.

Yori had split from the group, almost as soon as she had entered. "I will look for Stoppable-san and see if I can get him out," she said, hurrying away from them once Kim told her where to go.

They went to the officer who was in charge of Kim earlier, a harried looking woman in her late-thirties, who was swamped with calls at the moment and wasn't really paying any attention to them. She cleared her throat and the woman gave her a sharp glare of irritation.

"Sorry. Busy right now," she mouthed at Kim, who nodded back and glanced at Darnia, who was scanning the area. She pointed at an unattended phone which was ringing and the two of them rushed over there.

"Ooh...is this where I get to say 'Cover me'?" Darnia cooed in excitement as Kim stood in front of her, blocking her from the general view of others. She rolled her eyes and gestured at her to do her stuff. "Oh...right...gotcha," she said and pulled out the phone line and plugged it into the Kimmunicator.

Luckily for them, the Kimmunicator was completely silent during the connection period and after a minute of tense waiting, there was a scratching sound on the Kimmunicator, followed by Wade's voice: "Can you hear me?"

Kim let out a sigh of relief. "Wade...good to hear you. Do you know what's jamming communications in Go City?" she asked, not turning around so that she can keep an eye on what's going on.

After a five second pause, Wade said, "I'm guessing that it's the QBFG activation that's causing it and no, I have no idea why no one is dead yet. Theoretically, that's what that is supposed to happen but maybe something was changed in the building or even the activation process." Must be the lag, Kim thought.

"Antropy said he was using Mystical Monkey Powers to power the device. You think that maybe that might have something to do with it?"

"I can't really say until the tests are actually done. All this magic stuff is just too weird for me. Give me science any time of the day."

"Okay...so if the QBFG's function was changed, what's going on right now?" Kim asked.

"Oh, actually it's working perfectly. Instead of wiping out all living beings, the device created some sort of energy barrier around Go City and is preventing things from leaving and entering the city, including radio wave transmission."

"So how come we're still talking to you? Not to mention all of the landlines are still functioning."

Five seconds passed and Kim could imagine Wade shrugging. "It's a sketchy thought but maybe, just maybe, the barrier doesn't interfere with anything that's already there when it was set up and this allows the signal to use the cables to travel out of the city. That make any sense to you?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. So you think you could send us the data that you were suppose to earlier?"

"Ever tried downloading two gigabytes of stuff on a 14.4 kbps modem?"

"Normal talk, Wade."

"He means don't bother trying. We'll be dead before it gets through," Darnia crinkled her brow. "Does this PDA have a fiber-optic cable connector?" she asked.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Dark fiber," she replied with a grin. "Catch you later, Wade," she said before she pulled the plug. "Okay. We're finding ninja girl and your boyfriend and then we can get the data that we need from Wade," she said, grabbing an unattended flashlight that was lying on the desk.

"Wait...where are we going?" Kim demanded.

"Down there," she replied, pointing at the ground.

PB

Ron and Yori joined up with them soon enough; apparently GCPD had no desire to keep him any longer now that the city was in an actual crisis. On his part, he was concerned about how Kim was holding up right now.

"Other than the nausea and a constant feeling of bloated-ness? Yeah, just peachy," she said. "At least I'm not throwing up any more."

"We're going to have to get you some mouthwash later," he promised as they followed Darnia out. "Oh, and why are we looking for a manhole again?"

"You guys ever heard of dark fiber?" she asked them. Three heads shook at once. "Short story is that right underneath our feet, there's an entire network of fiber-optic cables that was placed there in the nineties so that the internet could expand and tele-com companies could regulate themselves. The dot-com crashed happened though but not before the fiber-optic cables were laid throughout most of America."

"So you're planning to go down there and tap into the dark fiber so that we can get the data we need from Wade?" Kim asked.

"Bingo," she grinned. "Ooh...looks like we found an entrance," she said, pointing at a manhole cover. She looked at the other three expectantly. "Well? Move it. You three are the heroes here, and in the case of you," she points at Ron, "...a freaking superhero even."

Sighing, Ron got down to his knees and effortlessly pulled the manhole away. "Thank you," Darnia grinned and climbed down the manhole, fishing out the flashlight as she did so. They watched her above as she searched the interior of the manhole for what she was looking for.

"There we go!" she said and pulled a wire from the PDA, connecting it to an unused socket. There was a soft buzz and then Wade's voice could be heard. "Guys? You managed to find a link?"

Kim hopped down into the manhole as soon as she heard Wade's voice and went over to Darnia. "Nice work," she grinned at her room-mate before she glanced at her tech-expert. "This connection fast enough for you?" she asked.

"And then some! No need to worry about bandwidth problems! Alright, just pull out the other port and connect it to your watch, Kim. That will let me transfer it into your newer model."

"Spankin'," Kim grinned and did as he instructed her. Soon the data was uploaded into her watch and she flipped it on to take a look at it. "Wade, what am I looking at?"

"The green line indicates the size of the barrier right now, which right now is as big as the entire city itself and extends up to roughly two miles up in the air. It's not getting any bigger but nothing can go in or out as of right now. Live streams from the edge of the barrier indicates that anyone or anything doesn't have a happy ending at all."

"Sounds serious," she said grimly. "So where's the heart of the barrier?" she asked.

A red light blinked on the Kimmunicator. "Right there in that building over there," Wade said as a label that read 'Myrmidon Tower' popped up.

"You think Antropy's over there with the device?" she asked.

"It's a reasonable assumption although I'd say expect some other sort of trouble too. I'm uploading a blueprint of the tower to you as well as an application to locate the signature and then I'll try to work on bypassing the jamming with Darnia so that we can hopefully give you some support later," he said.

"Good idea," she said, pulling out her watch from the PDA once the upload was completed. Then she went back to the ladder and started to climb out. Ron and Yori were waiting for her, both of them looking a little tensed.

"You guys heard what he said," she said, dusting herself off. "We're going to Myrmidon Tower and we'll going to put a stop to Antropy once and for all."

"Do we have a plan?" Yori asked. Kim shook her head in reply. "No...not really but I'm going to take a guess and say that Antropy has his device on the highest floor of the tower."

"Yeah...they always do that. Maybe they just like the penthouse suite a lot," Ron mused aloud.

She grinned. "But that makes things much easier for us." She pulled up the data that Wade had sent her earlier, and pointed at the topmost floor. "What do you know, it is a penthouse suite. Hmmm...looks like there's an open space over here," she mused and widened the blueprint. Luckily, Wade had thought to include a rough map of the buildings that surrounded the Myrmidon Tower too.

"Possible-san, what about this one?" Yori pointed at a building next to their target.

"Yeah, that looks good," Kim said in agreement as Ron looked between the two girls. "You two have a plan already?" he asked. "And when did I miss out on the no word instantaneous plan thing going on between the two of you?" he complained.

Kim petted his hand reassuringly. "Don't worry, lover boy," she said. "We'll fill you in on everything later. But for now, I hope you've been brushing up on your base jumping," she grinned.


	18. Chapter 18

"Kim?"

"Yes, Ron?" she asked as she tied her hair into a ponytail and slipped on a helmet. They were on the roof of a building overlooking the Myrmidon Tower; this particular building was about 1570 feet versus the Tower which stood at 1250 feet. "Second thoughts?"

"Oh you know...just wondering why in the world do we have to do the whole base jumping thing? Can't we just...oh I don't know...sneak into the building and run up the stairs?"

"Really? You're telling me that you want to do things the quiet way? That's really no fun at all. Besides, what are we supposed to do while running up a hundred flight of stairs? Talk to each other about our hopes and dreams?"

"Well..."

"I do hope that we will be able to do this more often, Possible-san. This saving the world business that you and Stoppable-san do is giving me a lot of much needed experience in the battlefield," Yori said helpfully. She had already changed into a gray and silver ninja outfit, complete with a crimson sash around her waist.

"Really? What do you think Ron?" Kim turned to him. He was dressed in his usual black mission shirt and cargo pants, complete with a helmet and he was stretching his legs, warming up for the big run.

"That would actually be pretty cool," he said. "Although, come to think of it, did you set the whole transfer thing up at GCU just so that you can do this? Sneak into the team?"

"I am ready to infiltrate the tower now, Possible-san," Yori said, pulling on her mask, seemingly evading the question. Kim grinned a little and nodded. "Ready, Ron?"

"Wait, she didn't answer my..." he stopped as the two girls started running in unison. He groaned and ran after them. "Next time I'm getting Wade to make me a girl to English translator," he grumbled.

The two girls jumped off the building before Ron did and pulled their parachutes after a hundred foot fall, steering themselves over to the Myrmidon Tower. Above them, they heard Ron shout something before he steered himself into their view and gave them a sheepish thumbs-up, his secondary parachute deployed.

The rooftop of the Myrmidon Tower quickly grew larger as they drew closer to it. It was, as Kim had gathered earlier, a penthouse suite, complete with a rooftop garden and a swimming pool that gleamed in the sunlight.

Aiming quickly, Kim fired her grappling hook at one of the trees in the garden and it connected with a satisfying crunch. At that moment, Yori lashed out with two chains, one at Kim and the other at Ron, both of them grabbing one chain each before all three of them released their parachutes and plummeted towards the side of the tower, the hook holding their combined weight well.

They landed on the tower, with a loud crack coming from the window that they landed on. A sharp burst of power erupted from Ron and he started to run up the side of the tower, grabbing Yori and Kim in his arms, as he made his way up the tower in defiance of gravity, leaving cracks of his footprints behind with each step that he made.

When he was almost at the edge of the roof, he jumped, tossing Kim and Yori upwards. The two girls grabbed the roof and vaulted over it nimbly, spinning around and tossing Yori's chains towards him so that he could grab it and slingshot himself onto the roof, where he landed two seconds later with a loud thump and a small crater forming where he hit the roof.

Quickly, the three of them dove for cover, hiding from anything that might have seen them landing on the roof. The coast was clear and they darted from cover to cover, making their way to the penthouse.

Once they were at the penthouse, Kim held up a hand and signaled to the others to hide, which they did so, blending in amongst the shadows almost flawlessly. Grinning, she peered into the suite through the window, her eyes widening when she saw what was inside.

There was definitely people living here; she could see the signs of habitation: family pictures, a few stuffed animals lying here and there, a bowl for the family dog and all was completely covered with ants that had crawled over them, mostly obscuring them from sight. She gritted her teeth and scanned the area quickly; other than the ants, there were no other living beings that she could see.

She signaled to the others and they approached her quietly. "Oh...that is not a very pretty picture," Ron shuddered when he saw the ants. "Why is this villain a bug villain?"

"At least these are the flick-able ones," Kim whispered back. "And I have the two of you to deal with the big ones when they show up."

"Still don't want to deal with your fear of giant bugs, huh?" he asked snidely.

"As much as you don't want to deal with your fear of the little ones," she retorted.

Yori rolled her eyes and placed a finger on each of their lips. "Possible-san, is your watch able to detect the source of the energy signature?" she asked. Kim nodded and turned her watch on. According to the watch, they were very close to the signature, about twenty feet above them actually.

"Okay. Stealth approach, Ron," she whispered.

"Why me?" he protested.

"Because Yori already meant into stealth mode," she said lightly. He glanced over to see that she had already vanished.

"Great...you know, the idea of being in a team is so that we can communicate with each other," he grumbled, following in Kim's lead as she entered the suite quietly.

Once the two of them had entered, the ants stopped immediately in their tracks and as one, they turned to look at Kim and Ron, their antennae twitching in the air. There was a strange sensation running up and down Kim's spine, as though as she was being watched...and judged.

Yori reappeared next to them in a flash. "I believe they know we are here," she said, sounding rather nervous.

"Great...he's already got the drop on us...well c'mon then...let's just get this over with, okay?" Kim said, as the ants started to shift themselves, forming a pathway to guide them to the stairs.

"Like a train on a railroad," Ron said nervously. Kim nodded her head slightly as she followed the path upstairs, heading to where the ants were guiding them.

Upstairs, waiting for them in the middle of what looks to be a dance hall, Antropy was sitting on a throne of ants, formed from millions of ants acting together to take on the shape of one. He glared at them as soon as they had entered, obviously extremely upset about something, standing up and pointing at Ron angrily. "You! What did you do to the device?" he said.

"Me? What did I do this time?" Ron protested, looking rather confused.

"The device! It isn't supposed to work this way! The city was supposed to have been wiped clean! Everything should have been destroyed! But now...now we are trapped in the city, within this barrier and we cannot move out of it! The only thing changed was the power source...and therefore you are the one to be blamed!" he shouted, raving angrily. As he spoke, Kim could swear that the echo in his voice intensified subtly, even though there was no reason for there to be an echo right now.

"Okay, Antropy," Kim said lightly, stepping forward. "You messed up big time and your evil scheme didn't work. I'd suggest that you just give up the QBFG so that we don't beat you up...or well, Ron here doesn't have to beat you up."

"Or we could fight all of you again, with the colony by my side, capture your boyfriend and then we shall take our time finding out the right configuration of his blood so that the device will work properly while we snack on his brains which we have yet to have a chance to taste yet," he said, standing up as a horde of giant ants emerged, surrounding them in an instant.

"Oh c'mon...don't you just hate it when the bad guys get to surround you instantly without you even noticing them?" Ron complained loudly.

"Not at all. We quite enjoy it actually," Antropy said with a smirk, his voice still having the weird echo quality to it as the ants close in on them.

Kim backed away into the other two slowly. Though her fear was slowly getting the better of her, her mind was still racing. Where was the device being kept? Locate the device first, get it away from Antropy, deactivate it. Best option to follow at the moment. "Ron, big guy. Yori, army," she said softly to them, pulling out the remaining six capsules from her pouch and handing them to Yori, who took them silently.

As she did so, she felt something light land on her arm and ran down her body into her pocket. She glanced down and Rufus gave her a thumbs up and a wink of reassurance and she smiled at both him and Ron.

"Ready?" she said, preparing to run away. "Go!" Yori tossed one of the capsules onto the ground, created a cloud of smoke that seemed to envelope the hall that they were in as Ron charged forward at Antropy, rushing past the ants and smashing those who tried to intercept him with a single blow to their heads. On her part, Kim launched a grappling hook at the ceiling and pulled herself out of the cloud, swinging towards the exit that was behind Antropy.

"Stop her!" she heard him yell. "Do not let her escape!" Acid spits began to fill the air and she twist and turn, releasing the line and launching another immediately to arrest her fall. Down below, she could see Ron engaging Antropy in a one on one fight. As for Yori herself, she couldn't see but she could see her handiwork: several defeated ants with shurikens embedded in their bodies. Ahead of her, there was a staircase leading upstairs. Maybe that's where the...

A blast of acid whizzed past her and she nearly lost her grip. Need to focus, she scolded herself as she let go of the second line, landing in front of the second stairs with a soft grunt. She sprang up to her feet and raced up the stairs as fast as she can.

Two giant ants crawled down the stairs to challenge her; she froze in her steps but only for a moment as one stepped forward to take a bite out of her. Instincts made her jump in the air and she fired a sonic pulse at the one that tried to bite her, neatly exploding its head and she landed on the other ant's thorax. She jumped up again, landing behind it and she resumed running up before the second ant could turn around.

She found herself in a narrow hallway, with four doors on either side of the room and one door at the end of the hallway. She turned on her Kimmunicator to see if it was able to track the energy signature; she let out a sigh of relief when she could see that it could do so. The signal appeared to be coming out of the door at the end of the hallway. Of course, she thought and stepped forward.

Giant ants burst out of the other doors, snapping their mandibles violently and crowding up the hallway. Of course, she sighed. That was just as predictable, wasn't it? She turned on the hypersonic emitter again and smiled to herself as the ants began to writhe in agony from the high pitched whine being released from her watch. They didn't retreat away from her though, blocking up the entire hallway still. At least they weren't going to take a bite out of her.

She started to dance, humming a tune to herself as she waltzed her way past the ants. Much easier than dodging lasers, she thought, gracefully avoiding an ant's trashing mandible as she made her way to the door. Upon reaching the door, she gave it a spinning kick, knocking it open and stunning an ant that was writhing behind the door.

Inside, she could see the device, possibly the original version, with lights blinking as it shook and hummed.  
"Okay...now what?" she murmured as she slammed the door shut behind her before she turned and pointed her watch at the ant. Its head burst into a pulp and the high-pitched whine stopped. "Wait...I can't have both on at the same time? Cr..." she threw herself forward as the door burst open again and the other ants swarmed into the room.

What to do, what to do...she thought in a panic and mashed her watch as hard as she could. Nothing happened; she looked down at it and saw that the screen on her watch had frozen. "Stupid bug," she said and glanced at the other ants. She took a step back and they followed her, until she was touching the device. They stopped in their tracks as soon as she had done so, their antennas twitching.

This is so not good...


	19. Chapter 19

Don't panic, Kim. Just breathe...think of what you should do when you're surrounded by giant ants that wants to rip your head off with their mandibles and rend your flesh from your bones and I'll never be able to see Ron again and...

Something ran up her body and she almost shrieked in fright. Rufus stared at her incredulously and she calmed down a little. Right...Rufus...okay...forgot about him...and now I forgot about the ants, she thought, seeing that they had inched closer to her.

Okay...what to do? she tried to keep her mind focused. Her eyes darted about the place wildly to see what she could do. Okay, first things first..."Rufus, get in there and do what you do to stop this thing," she ordered the naked mole rat. He saluted at her and quickly scooted inside the device.

Now for the bigger problem, she winced as she looked at the giant ants as they closed in on her. Her thoughts raced, though this time the words 'giant ants' was the only thing that her brain was processing.

The first ant reached and snapped at her; she responded by leaping up into the air to avoid the bite and she landed on top of the QBFG with a slight thump. "Hey!" Rufus screeched in protest, sticking his body out to shake his fist at her, only to zip back in as an ant tried to bite him in two.

Okay, second thing, distract the ants away from Rufus. Kim let out a piercing scream as she kicked that ant, knocking it from the device and she somersaulted down to the ground, into the sea of ants.

Oh gross...she nearly threw up but she managed to force the bile down before she unleashed a barrage of blows against the ants around her, dancing around them as she avoided their snapping jaws. A few mandibles came close to catching her, snagging bits of her hair or her clothes instead but they didn't draw any blood and she kept on moving, attacking and weaving through the ants.

Dance, weave, punch, kick. No problem...easier than dodging lasers, she thought as she narrowly evaded another ant's bite and had another piece of her shirt torn off. To her, it seemed like she was barely making the dodges but at least it was working, she had drawn their attention away from the device and they were now focused on her.

In the midst of another dodge, she heard the sound of spluttering machinery and she shot a glance in the direction of the device: its light had dimmed and it was still as Rufus popped out of it, holding a blood-stained quartz in his paws. "Ta-da!" he chittered proudly.

"Yes, Rufus!" she crowed and launched a grappling hook into the ceiling, jumping up and swinging towards him. She grabbed him a moment before an ant's jaws snapped on him. "Gotcha!" she grinned and carefully placed him in her pocket, before she launched another line, this time swinging towards the windows. Releasing the line, she cannon-balled through the window, smashing it into shards of glass that rain out into the ground far below.

Spinning in mid-air, she launched a line into the tower again, arresting her fall as she used her momentum to swing back onto the roof once more, landing in the garden where Antropy, Ron, Yori and a large group of ants were busy battling each other.

"Antropy!" she shouted at him. "I think you just lost something!" Kim held up the blood-stained quartz. This elicited a huge howl of rage from him and he pointed at her. "Ms Possible! We had thought to do this the easy way, a simple bribe and restriction of your activities, sending Team Go away on a vacation...but you have insisted on this!" he hissed at her. "But you have refused everything we have thrown at you!"

She grinned at him and hurled the quartz to the ground before she stomped down hard on it, cracking it. "Well, I'm sorry to break the news to you, Antropy but it looks like your plan has quite the flaw in it right now," she said, eliciting a groan from Ron and a puzzled look from Yori towards him.

He snarled at her. "If our plans are going to fail...then we'll make sure that you all will fall with it too! Colony, make sure that none of those fools are alive!" he howled.

The ants rose as one and made a rush for the three teens. Ron and Yori took up defensive stances, Kim simply yelped and ran over to their sides. "You know, KP. Aren't you suppose to have dealt with your fears of giant bugs, right now?" Ron asked her as she hid behind him.

"Have you ever dealt with your monkey problem? Or your bug problem?" she countered.

"Point taken. Okay...stand back...time for Ron Stoppable to play knight in shining armor!" he grinned as he spring forward onto his hands, spinning around and kicking away at the ants that approached him for a brief moment before pushing himself into the air and landing on the ground once more, with a shock-wave that cracked the floor and knocked the rest of the ants onto their feet.

"Possible-san, perhaps we shall let Stoppable-san deal with the ants this time and we will take out their leader?" Yori said to her.

"You got a plan?" Yori responded by handing her one of the weighted chains to Kim. She took it and stared at it for a moment before she realized what it is that Yori was hinting at. "You want to hit him high or low?" she grinned.  
"I have a preference for hitting...what is the saying, below the waist?"

"Close enough. Go for it," she said and began running for Antropy, twirling the chain rapidly above her head. Ron had already cleared a path for the two of them, leaving battered ants in his path and it was an easy thing, running up to Antropy. Once she was in range, Kim hurled one of the chain's weighted end directly at his head. He caught it with one hand and wrapped it around his fist, pulling Kim towards him in an attempt to knock her off balance.

She was prepared for this though, and her body flowed with the motion so that she was flying at him feet first. That, he did not expect and she flew into his head, causing it to snap back hard and he released his grip on the chain. While still in mid-air, Kim twisted her body again, round-housing him hard and the chain twirled, whipping so that it caught his wrist.

As the chain wrapped around Antropy's wrist, Kim caught sight of Yori who suddenly appeared behind the man. She slammed her foot into his knee, causing him to buckle slightly, which was enough for what she wanted to achieve apparently as she whipped her chain around his ankle, effectively tying him up. At this, the two girls nodded at each other and grabbed at their chains, pulling Antropy down in an undignified heap.

"Wha..." he spluttered before the two of them started to pull him towards the garden, more specifically towards two tall and stout trees. Moving quickly, they wrapped the chains around the trucks of the tree, binding him there in an awkward position so that he'd have to break more than a few bones if he were to wrestle himself from his bonds.

"And that," Kim said as she and Yori watched Antropy struggle against his bonds, "...is a wrap."

"No! It cannot end like this!" Antropy howled in rage as he struggled some more. "The colony cannot be defeated by non-powered mortals such as yourselves!"

"What? You want us to call Ron away from the giant ants so that he can knock you out? Would that make you feel better?" Kim said, feeling a little insulted by his words.

His response was to howl louder and struggle harder against his binds. "No, wait...you're going to..." she started to say when two sharp cracks could be heard and Antropy's arm and leg were suddenly twisted in a horrible way. Yori closed her eyes and looked away, disgusted by what she saw.

"The colony...we will grant the colony the world that it so desires," Antropy said, still desperately trying to break free of the chains despite of his broken limbs. Then his eyes glazed over and his head drooped down; his body became still.

"Antropy?" Kim said softly as the sounds of fighting started to die them around them. She reached out with her hand and touched his shoulder. His body was cold, as if he was...

His head jerked up suddenly, his eyes coal-black and faceted like an eye. "The colony will not surrender. We are the infinite army, omnipresent and ever vigilant," he intoned, his voice resonating in the air. "You have thwarted our plans to take over this world but we will not allow you to savor this victory for long," he pulled his arm and leg free from the chains and immediately collapsed to the ground.

"Is he insane? What is he..." Kim stopped and stared as two ant-like appendages burst out of his sides, pushing him up onto his one good arm and leg, like an ant who with two injured limbs. He rushed at them rapidly and they managed to throw themselves out of the way. He skittered away from them, heading back to the penthouse.

"What is he doing?" Kim said as she got back up to her feet. In the distance, the sounds of fighting became louder and she turned her head to see that Ron was busy fighting against an invigorated swarm of ants that was slowly pushing him towards the edge of the roof. Ron shouted once and a harsh glow enveloped his body, taking on the form of a fiery monkey as he got down on all fours, a toothy grin on his face.

"Okay...leave the ants to Ron," she said and grabbed Yori, pulling her close. "We're going after Antropy!" she launched her grappling hook and started swinging after the weird mutation. At the apex of the swing, Yori wriggled free and jumped ahead, tossing a capsule in front of Antropy, creating a cloud of smoke in front of him just as he was about to enter the penthouse. He let out a thrill of anger and turned about to look for another entrance, just as Kim released her line and launched herself at him, landing on his back and causing him to collapse to the ground.

"Give. Up. Already!" she punctuated each word with a sharp kick to his head and she somersaulted away from him as his two ant limbs reached up to attack her. Yori lunged forward at this time, a shuriken in one hand and a capsule in the other. Stabbing the blade into the capsule, she dodged to the side as one of the ant limbs slashed at her and she hurled the blade into Antropy's head. The blade flew true and he staggered back, reeling as his eyes took on a cloudy sheen.

Seeing their chance, the two girls launched a flurry of blows at him, hitting him in his face and chest as they forced him away from the penthouse. His movements were sluggish and incoherent and while Kim was certain that they weren't really hurting him, she was confident that this was enough to keep him occupied.

"Ron!" she shouted and she grabbed Yori's hand, spinning the other girl so that her feet was smashing into Antropy's head, knocking him of balance. Her boyfriend glanced up at the sound of his name, as he casually backhanded an ant that was about to attack him. He nodded once and started to back-flip his way towards them.

In turn, Yori forced her body down so that she was spinning Kim around instead. The latter released her hold on Yori's hands and she flew towards Antropy, launching a mule kick into his chest that sent him flying at Ron.

Screaming, Ron grabbed the ant-man in mid-flight and flipped around, suplexing him to the ground, which finally gave way after much abuse and the two of them plummeted through the levels, Ron still screaming as he held on tightly to Antropy as he bull-rushed him through each floor.

Instinctively, Kim ran towards the hole and jumped down through it, keeping her arms pinned to her side as she dove towards Ron. "Gotcha!" she shouted as she reached him and grabbed his belt. Twisting in mid-air, she launched a line up, snagging a piece of rubble that halted their fall as Ron released his grip on Antropy to hurl him further down and the two of them swung into an empty floor, whilst Antropy continued to crash through several layers of concrete still.

Panting, Kim peered down the holes that they had created. She could still hear the crashes as Antropy broke through each floor; she counted another twenty before it finally stopped. "You think he's finally out?" she asked Ron.

"Nah. He'll probably pop out in five, four, three, two, one..." Ron said cheerily as right on cue, a badly battered and bleeding Antropy jumped up from the hole. Without even missing a beat, he swung his fist into Antropy, sending him flying into the opposite wall.

"Now he's out," he said with a wry grin to Kim, as their opponent slumped down to the ground unconscious.

"Abooyah," she grinned back before she leaned up to kiss him fiercely.


	20. Chapter 20

The calvary arrived ten minutes after Ron had knocked Antropy out, this time being a small team of Global Justice who was led by Dr Director herself. By this time, Yori and Ron had sent the other ants fleeing while Kim watched from the shadows. The latter stood out in the open, waving to the helicopter that brought the agents in as they landed on the roof.

"Ms Possible?" Dr Director shouted over the whirling blades of the helicopter as she hopped out to meet her. "You've secured the QBFG and Antropy?" At this point, the rest of the other Global Justice agents had already spread out throughout the penthouse.

"Yes!" Kim shouted back. "Ron and a friend of ours is taking care of the vermin problem right now."

"Much appreciated! Then all my team needs to do is to run clean up over here. We can't thank you enough for making our job easier for us," the older woman grinned at her. Then she gestured at Kim to follow her into the penthouse, which she did.

"So what's going to happen right now?" Kim asked casually, looking at the penthouse. "I'm going to debrief you about the sitch?"

"Actually there is something that I want to talk to you about. Our agents had examined the Arizona site carefully before the Go City incident. And..." Dr Director held up a PDA with a picture on the screen.

Curious, Kim glanced at the screen for a few moments before her eyes widened. "Is that picture for real? It's not PictureShacked or anything?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not. You really are looking at Anthony Mancuso, six hours ago at the Arizona site," Dr Director said grimly.

"So...who exactly were we fighting just now?" Kim asked her quietly after a moment of stunned silence.

"That's what we hope to find out, Kimberly," Dr Director placed a reassuring hand on Kim. "I don't think it was some mass hallucination though. Our instruments picked up the activation of the QBFG so what happened just now really did happen. Get some rest, Kim. You and your friends deserve it. We'll call you if there's anything that you need to know." With that, Dr Director took her leave.

Kim nodded her head, her face ashen as she took a seat. What in the world was going on here? Who exactly did she fought just now? All these questions disappeared when Ron and Yori walked into the penthouse and she got up and went over to them, giving him a big hug.

"Whoa...Kim...what's with the loving?" he joked as he returned the hug. Yori looked at Kim, a little concerned as well.

She took a deep breath and smiled at him. "Just wanted to make sure that you're here. And yeah you are. C'mon...let's get something to eat," she said, taking his hand. "Same place?"

"Oh yeah," he grinned and Rufus popped out of his pocket. "Uh huh," the latter said.

"May I join too?" Yori asked, raising her hand. Kim nodded. "The more the merrier," she smiled at her as the three of them left the penthouse.

PB

She didn't tell them about what Dr Director had told her earlier. It was probably for the better, she reasoned as she watched Yori attempt to swallow the naco meal that Ron had bought for her. Besides, why spoil the only piece of really good news that they've had in days, that they've defeated the bad guy and he won't be bothering them again any time soon?

"That...is a unique taste..." Yori was saying after she finished swallowing the naco.

"So was that good or what?" Ron asked, beaming at her as Darnia joined them at their table with her order. They had gone to pick her up after leaving the tower and she was quite eager to get something to eat too.

"It is..." Kim covered her smirk as she watched Yori squirm trying to figure out what to say. "...a pleasant taste to you and a different one for me, Stoppable-san. What are you eating, Possible-san? Salad? I think I shall go and order some for myself," Yori quickly stood up and went to the counter.

"What is something I said?" Ron raised an eyebrow as he watched Yori hurry off. Kim simply shrugged and said, "I think she found the experience to be quite unique and..."

Beep, beep be beep.

She glanced down at her watch and saw from the caller ID flashing on the screen that it was Dr Director. "Excuse me. I've got a call to take," she said and walked away, leaving Ron and Darnia to stare at each other suspiciously.

She walked a fair distance away from the others and once she had made sure that the coast was clear, she activated her watch. "Well...did you find anything?" she asked.

"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Dr Director asked.

"Give me the good news first."

"You did fight Antropy aka Anthony Mancuso earlier today; we found him on the 65th floor just like you said."  
"Okay...so what's the bad news?" she asked a little nervously.

"He's been...out of commission for approximately 67 hours."

Kim frowned and shook her head. "That's...that's..."

"Impossible? That's what I thought too but now I'm not so sure. My team managed to get the tower's security videos and we've taken it back for analysis but from what I've seen so far, it was dead man walking and fighting all the way."

Kim was about to reply when she heard a sharp shriek. Looking up, she saw that Ron, Darnia and Yori were staring at something on their table. "Never mind I'll call you back," she said and rushed back to her friends. "What's..." she stopped and stared at the army of ants on their table, arranging themselves to spell words on the table.

_Congratulations, Ms Possible and friends. You have defeated the colony and prevented us from taking over your world. We concede this defeat to you but you may rest assure that the colony will return one day when you least expect it. Just not today of course. We give you our word on that. Farewell, Ms Possible. We look forward to the day of our return and your defeat._

Then the ants immediately dispersed, leaving the four of them staring at the table and their food. After a minute, Ron raised his hand. "You guys want to order something else or do we go to Cow and Chow?"

"Something else. I don't eat beef," Darnia said quickly. "Can we change tables too? That was just too weird."

Kim nodded in agreement. But it did look like this particular crisis really was over, she thought in relief as they changed their table.

PB

Hours later, Kim and Ron were finally alone in her car as she drove around aimlessly in her car. He watched her silently, apparently realizing that she was troubled but decided to give her some time to collect her thoughts. Finally she sighed and drove her car out of the city.

"Kim, is something wrong?" he asked at last, as they were sped along the road.

She was silent for a while more before she said, "Ron...would you want to do this for the rest of your life?"

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" he asked her in confusion.

"This. Fighting off bad guys one after the other, only for them to come back again, threatening to kill us as payback for what we did and..." she was silenced by a deep kiss from Ron.

"What was that for?" she asked after breaking off from the kiss. Luckily the tweebs had installed an auto-driving functions for this sort of emergencies.

"KP, you're worrying too much," he grinned at her. "You said it before: you'd never back down from this life ever, not when people still needs your help and we can help them. Besides, now we've got Yori helping us, she's just as good as you are and the two of you are one heck of a team. So what if the bad guys keep coming back. We'll keep on stopping them, that's what Team Possible does. The sky's the limit for us," he said, petting her cheek.

"Did you just steal my line for that pep talk, Ron?" she asked, trying not to smile at the truth in his words. They've done too much good to simply quit just because they've just faced a villain who has power from beyond the grave.

"Well...yeah...but you have to admit: your line is just as suited for this sitch right now."

She laughed, feeling the gloom fade away as she did so. "Yeah...so I guess this also means that our team has actually expanded huh?"

"Are you kidding? Two kick-ass women, a super-powered me, a tech genius and his backup? No one is ever gonna stop us, ever!"

Rufus climbed out of Ron's pocket and up onto his shoulder, punching his cheek lightly. "Hey!"

"Right...sorry buddy. Forgot about you," he grinned at the naked mole rat. "Oh, and you know what else, KP?"

"What?"

"No more Dean Mancuso to tell you that you should stop your hero business."

"I'm pretty sure him being the bad guy and dead has quite a lot to do with that," she said, her tone being a weird mix of wryness and solemnity. She couldn't say that she wasn't glad that he was gone but...maybe she'll find the right words later...who knows?

But she did know one thing: she was glad to be alive today and that she could still save the world with her friends and boyfriend. And no matter what else that comes along, she was definitely going to keep on doing this until her time was up.

And nothing was going to ever change that

THE END

Author's notes: Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's read this little story up to its conclusion, who's written little notes and who's followed and favourite-d this story. It was a lot of fun writing this although I did have some problems at the end (mostly with trying to find the right way to end this fic). It's been seven years since I last wrote anything meaningful so I had to write in bite sized bits just to get the hang of writing once more. Will there be more after this? Who knows? No promises on this side.


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